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Lady Bell. 


A STORY OL LAST CENTURY. 


Author of 


BY 

SARAH TYTLER, .-x 

“CiTOYENNB Jacqueline,” etc. 


V' _ 

SSaitf) $Uustrati'oni5. 



HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY. 
boston: CHARLES H. WHITING. 
1884. 


Entered 1884. 


HENRY 


. SUMNER & CO. 


Chicaoo. 


CONTENTS 


CHAT. 

I. AN OLD queen’s DRAWING-ROOM 
n. ST. BEVIS’S AND SQUIRE GODWIN 

m. MRS. KITTY 

rV MRS. DIE AND THE QUARTER SESSIONS 

V. AN IMPRISONED PRINCESS . . . . 

VI. FROM SGYLLA TO CHARYBDI8 .... 

VII. AN OLD squire’s WOOING 

VIII. MARRIED IN A DAY 

IX. LADY BELL TREVOR 

X. THE SUNDONS AND THE WAL8HES 

XI. THE ELECTION AT PEASMAR8H . % . . 

XII. BETRAYAL. 

Xni. FLIGHT 

XIV. ROYALTY AGAIN 

XV. LIFE WITH THE PLAYERS 

XVI. COMPANION TO MISS KINGSCOTE .... 

XVII. MASTER CHARLES ...... 

XVUI. MRS. BARLOWE 

XIX. AN OLD FRIEND ....... 

XX. A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST .... 

XXI. FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD 

XXII. KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER 

XXIII. FRIENDS IN NEED 

XXIV. BOW BELLS AND THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT 

XXV. A GAY YOUNG MADAM 

XXVI. MAKING AN ACQUAINTANCE AT THE PANTHEON . 

XXVII. OPINIONS DIFFER 

XXVIII. Boulton’s coins and wedgwood’s dishes . 

xxrx. A PARTY ON THE WATER 

XXX. DISCORD 


PAGE 

I 

10 

17 

24 

31 

38 

47 

63 

69 

67 

76 

87 

95 

104 

113 

122 

130 

137 

144 

153 

160 

167 

174 

183 

190 

196 

203 

209 

219 

225 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PACK 

XXXI. THE LITTLE DINNER AT HAMPTON, WITH MUSIC ON THE 

WATER . . 232 

XXXII. A VISIT TO LEICESTER FIELDS 239 

XXXIII. SIR JOSHUA AT HOME 245 

XXXIV. THE MASQUED BALL IN PROSPECT 251 

XXXV. THE MASQUED BALL AS IT BEGAN IN REALITY . . . 258 

XXXVI. THE “common DOMINO ” 264 


XXXVII. ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE, AND IN LADY BELL 


TREVOR AND MISS GREATHEAD’S BOX . . . .270 

XXXVIII. THE MEETING ON THE MALL 279 

XXXIX. TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT 285 

XL. ISLINGTON CHURCH EARLY ONE MARCH MORNING . . 292 

XLI. BACK AT SUMMERHILL 299 

XLII. SECRETS AT SUMMERHILL 305 

XLIII. MRS. SUNDON’S NEWS 313 

XLIV. FROM THE COUNTRY TO THE TOWN AGAIN .... 321 


XLV. MASTER CHARLES SEEING THE LIONS, AND LADY BELL PLAY- 
ING BO-PEEP WITH THE PUBLIC 328 

XLVI. ANOTHER WATER-PARTY, AND A STRANGE ENCOUNTER AT 


THE DOCKS 336 

XLVn. DANCING THE BOLERO 346 


XLVIII. CROSS PURPOSES, WITH AN OLD FACE IN A NEW LIGHT . 353 

XLIX. THE INTELLIGENCE IN THE GAZETTE 359 

L. DRAWING A BLANK IN THE LOTTERY OF LIFE . . . 366 

LI. BEARING ONE’S OWN AND ONE’s NEIGHBOUR’S BURDENS . 372 

LII. MRS. SUNDON’s PURSUIT OF PLEASURE .... 378 

LIII. THE REVIEW AT CLAPHAM — MRS. SUNDOn’s INTRODUCTION 

TO CAPTAIN FANE . • 385 

LIV. THE TRIAL OF ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF KINGSTON . .391* 

LV. AN AFTERNOON IN KENSINGTON GARDENS .... 398 

LVI. A HAT TOSSED OFF. — LADY BELL PICKS UP A GAUNTLET . 405 


LVII. MASTER CHARLES PAYS A FORMAL VISIT . . . .412 

LVIII. AN ARREST AND A RESCUE 420 

LIX. life’s CHEQUERS 429 

LX. SIX YEARS LATER 437 


I 


CHAPTEE I. 


AN OLD queen’s DRAWING-ROOM. 

j^OW, child, I sha’n’t go any farther till her grace’s chair 
come. In the meantime I’ll tell you who are the tops 
in the drawing-room, and you may use your eyes for an 
honest purpose.” 

The speaker was old Lady Lucie Penruddock : the listener 
was her grand-niece, young Lady Bell Ether edge. The 
occasion was a queen’s drawing-room, and the time was still 
that of bad country roads and dark town streets, mobs and 
murders, wild ladies of quality and stiU wilder sparks of 
fashion. 

The old palace of St. J ames’s was not less ugly in its brick 
mass than it is to-day. The passages and stairs, in a nook 
of which Lady Lucie and her grand-niece were ensconced, 
were thronged densely as usual. The footmen, yeomen of 
the guard, grooms of the chamber, and stewards of every 
degree were very nearly the exact predecessors of their suc- 
cessors in office. But the company, representing lai*gely the 
same historic names and aristocratic associations, were more 
strongly marked as a class and sharply defined as individuals. 
The very court dress was far statelier, and more splendid in 
its stiff gorgeousness. Who knows now of tissues of gold 
and silver, of gold and silver lace by thousands of yards, of 
diamond buttons, buckles, and clasps in every direction? 


2 


LADY BELL. 


And the humanity which thus glowed and flashed in its ouor-r 
trappings was in proportion more potent in its inner qualities, 
— good or had, whether they shone with a chaste or a lurid 
light. 

Lady Lucie, seventy years of age, wore a magniflcent 
purple, green, and gold-flowered brocade. Lady Bell, a lass 
of fourteen — no more, but in those precocious days on the 
eve of her first presentation — wore a white lutestring frosted 
with silver. Lady Lucie, a grand woman once in proportions 
and traits, was still — ^withered, shrunk, and grey as she 
showed — a striking wreck of a woman, like the ruin of a 
noble building or the skeleton of a goodly tree. Lady Bell, 
a little girl, not a ** fine figure ” any more than a “ fine for- 
tune,” to her grand-aunt’s open mortification, was like a 
budding tube-rose from the Chelsea gardens, spangled with 
a finer kind of dew than falls to the lot of ordinary roses, 
and invested with a rarer and more irresistible charm. 

. “Here comes Princess Emily to wait upon her royal niece. 
Be ready with your curtsey. Bell ; she has eyes for every 
hole and corner and every new comer. Perhaps she will 
stop and ask who you are. No, she has pushed on to talk 
to Colonel Hammond of her horses, and engage him for her 
loo-table to-night.” 

“ She looks yellower in her court suit. Aunt Lucie, than 
when I saw her before in a habit, with her little dog under 
her arm, and once in a night-gown at Lady Campbell’s, don’t 
you remember?” said Lady Bell, not so excited as to have 
lost her power of observation. 

“ Hush, you goose ; plain daughters of handsome mothers 
are plentiful enough. Your mother. Bell, was even too tall, 
verging on a may-pole, and see what a small chit you are. 
There is the Attoraey-General,” said Lady Lucie, indicating 
Thurlow with his shaggy eyebrows and his two gold snufi*- 
boxes, one in each waistcoat pocket ; “ and yonder is his 


AN OLD QUEEN’S DRAWING-ROOM. 3 

fellow among tlie biskops,” directing Lady Bell’s attention 
to the burly Warburton, Bisbop of Gloucester. 

“ I tbink these men are wasted on tbe law and tbe cburcb, 
Aunt Lucie,” pronounced Lady Bell, witb ber keen, shallow 
criticism. 

‘‘You tbink their thews and sinews are wasted. Bell. Bab! 
these are wanted in all trades ; but if you desire to see a son 
of Anak in bis right place, look at that sailor — no, I don’t 
mean my Lord Howe, ‘ Black Dick ’ to bis messmates, but 
tbe proper young fellow who has been at tbe levee, doubtless 
on tbe strength of being appointed to a ship. He is some- 
what raw-boned and shock-beaded, I own, being a Scotchman, 
but be has mighty limbs, that Captain Duncan, as Lady 
Eothes called him.” 

“And is not Mr. Bruce, tbe great traveller, a Scotchman 
too ?. ” asked Lady Bell. 

“Wliatl tbe man who has drunk of tbe source of tbe 
Nile, and seen Tadmor in tbe Wilderness ? Ay, what could 
you expect but that be should be a wandering Scot, deserting 
the barren soil at home? But I hope, for all that, bis 
drawings will turn out bis own, for be claims to be the 
descendant of a king, though a poor and rude one. And 
there be goes, six feet four if be is an inch, and with tbe 
noble, handsome face of a gallant, adventurous gentleman.” 

“I don’t mind tbe gentlemen so much; their place is at 
tbe levee, ain’t it ? But I am set on seeing some of tbe court 
and town beauties.” 

“ Softly, all in good time, for here is tbe young duchess 
whom tbe whole world is agog about — and bless us, she is a 
Scotchwoman also, witb an accent that would fright tbe 
French.” 

“Ah! ber grace of Gordon,” exclaimed Lady BeU, snap- 
ping her fan, and getting chidden for being noisy in her 
excitement. 


4 


LADY BELL. 


There came the young queen of quips and cranks, whose 
broad Scotch accent contrasted so oddly to English ears with 
the extreme delicacy and perfection of her beauty, the sole 
flaw in which is said to have been the slight prominence of 
her square, white teeth. 

“No heart can resist her when she smiles and tries her 
repartee, even in this presence,” said Lady Lucie. “A power 
of repartee is a great thing, girl ; it becomes a fine woman 
better than diamonds. But if you desire to see pure beauty, 
though it is on the wane, there are the three graces standing 
together in a group, as if to do us a favour. In your ear. Bell, 
royalty has confessed the power of all the three, unless court 
gossip lies. The lady in blue is Lady Sarah Bunbury ; she 
made hay when the sun shone as Lady Sarah Lennox, with 
a certain kingly youth riding by ; and it was not the fault 
of her heaux yeux, or his tender heart neither, that the hay 
was made in vain. She is talking to the faithful widow. 
Lady Mary Coke, of whom prating tongues have reported 
that his late Eoyal Highness of York could have confessed 
that she was no widow in his day, but a royal duchess. The 
lady before them, in lemon colour ” 

“ She is lovely!” interrupted Lady Bell, with an ecstatic 
sigh. “What eyes, what a skin, to this day! She need not 
have recourse to the white paint poison.” 

“And she is a royal duchess, though she was once but 
‘ Waldegrave’s fair widow,’ when a wag — or were there two 
of them at the deed ? — writ, 

“ ‘ Full many a lover who longed to accost her. 

Was kept at a distance by Humphrey of Gloucester.’ ” 

The old drawing-room company Lady Lucie knew so well 
was not made up entirely of beUes and beaux, but of better 
and worse, and of something mediocre to serve as a sliding 
scale, and weld the two extremes easily together. There 


AN OLD QUEEN’S DRAWING-ROOM. 


5 


was one of the uncouthly colossal Conways, and there were 
several of the black Finches. There was stout, squat Miss 
Monckton, angling for the great traveller Bruce, «lifficult to 
land, like most big fishes, that she might set him before her 
next literary j)arty — as she was to angle for other fishes, 
food for other parties, after she was Countess of Cork. 

There was young Lady Charlotte North, still decidedly in 
the bloom of her ugliness,” but with such a power of 
repartee that her wit, sparkling like a diamond, left the 
listener too dazzled to dwell on the plainness of the casket 
which held the jewel. 

There was Dicky of Norfolk under his strawberry leaves, 
coarser than any ploughman and a great deal more drunken ; 
and there was his grace of Bridgewater, whom Lady Lucie 
represented as always plaguing himself with bridges and 
ditches. 

As an eccentric individual of the opposite sex Lady Lucie 
pointed out the great heiress of the Cavendish-Harleys, who 
was not Lady Lucie’s “ dear duchess,” and who, while she 
kept up the grand simplicity of a sovereign at Bulstrode, 
“ is yet so fond of birds and beasts and four-footed creatures, 
my dear,” declared Lady Lucie in a long parenthesis, “as 
well as of china and pictures, which to be sure is not so 
monstrous a taste, that I could well believe she would pledge 
her coronet for an oddly striped snail’s shell. Don’t you 
take to such vagaries, Bell, even if you have the money to 
waste upon them.” 

As a rule, the traces of a reckless pursuit of pleasure and a 
fierce dissipation were visible on the faces of many a high-bred 
man and woman there ; but they were high-bred, and their 
power, whether expressed by languor or superciliousness, or 
whether it was piquant in its absolute unscrupulousness, was 
a very real and great power to which they were born, and 
which neither they nor their contemporaiies ever questioned. 


6 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Lucie did not have the good fortune in one sense to 
find herself select in her contemporaries, neither was she 
particular according to modern canons. She drew hack, and 
looked another way, when the notorious Lady Harrington 
swept hy. But although she protested against shocking scan 
dais, her sense of right and wrong was blunted to the quieter 
ghasthness of heartless unrighteousness. She did not see 
any objection to exchanging friendly greetings with Anne, 
Countess of Upper Ossory, who had once been Duchess of 
Grafton, when she had agreed politely with her duke that 
their marriage should be dissolved by act of Parliament, 
and they had parted with a promise of friendship till death, 
and of constant correspondence; she had gone her way, 
which meant marrying splendidly the Earl of Upper Ossory; 
and the duke had gone his, which included contracting his 
characteristic alliance. 

Notwithstanding, Lady Lucie was almost guilty of pushing 
before Lady Bell, and hiding her with Lady Lucie’s hoop,' 
to screen the little girl from the blighting regards of “ Old 
Queensbury.” 

It was all very well that Lady Bell’s dehut should be 
mentioned at White’s in the middle of such topics as this 
year’s Newmarket, or that game of faroe, by some of those 
sleepy-eyed, grandly courteous, shockingly wicked, men, rem- 
nants of the old lady’s generation. Such notice need not 
hurt Lady Bell — nay, it was in the course of her promotion, 
and was greater luck than might be expected for her ; but 
that the simple child after all, in spite of her bringing up 
in the centre of the tainted, tangled great world, should be 
exposed to deadly danger by actual contact with the chiefs 
of debauchery, was more than Lady Lucie bargained for. 

It would have been a hideous world in high places if such 
figures as those of Lucy Harrington and the Duke of 
Queensbury had been the sole company on the stage. 


AN OLD QUEEN'S DRAWINQ-ROOM. 


7 


But the round, ruddy- faced king, in his prime, whose 
liomeliness, viewed even 'by his splendid courtiers’ eyes, was 
then held the model of royal affability, who smiled honestly 
on Lady Bell, with her poor fluttering heart in her mouth, 
in the august presence of such a star and blue riband, was, to 
his everlasting honour, a model of virtue in that genera- 
tion. 

“What! what!” the king questioned, “Penruddock? 
Etheredge ? Then the young lady is not a granddaughter 
of my .Lady Lucie ? As for Etheredge, can any one tell me 
why I have not heard the name before?” his Majesty asked, 
having forgotten the earldom which had become extinct, 
though he never forgot a face. 

A model of virtue, also, in her formality and starch, with 
her fixed ideas of what was due to a queen, even as her 
George would be a king, stood little plain-featured Queen 
Charlotte, with her plainness still redeemed by the freshness 
of comparative youth, in addition to the indomitable queen- 
liness which age and trials failed to subdue. 

The queen commended the modesty of Lady Bell’s dress 
and demeanour in a few pointed words, reverentially received 
by Lady BeU’s guardian, and took further advantage of the 
brief conversation to throw out some valuable hints on 
constant industry, with “ early to bed and early to rise ” as 
the routine calculated to preserve Lady Bell’s manners, 
morals, and health. 

There were other good couples more gracefully drawn and 
tenderly tinted than the royal couple at the drawing-room, 
though Lady Bell, dazzled and enchanted by the first childish 
contact with royalty, could not see any pair equal to the 
king and queen. 

It is reserved for those who gaze wistfully back through 
the mists of years, and by the commentary of long-told 
histories, to dwell with a sense of refreshment, whether 


8 


LADY BELL. 


pensive or cheerful, on heroes and heroines a shade humbler 
in rank. 

There were faithful pairs, like young Lord and Lady 
Tavistock, whose attachment was so fond, that when he was 
killed in stag hunting, she died of grief within the year ; or 
like Lord and Lady Carlisle, who, after trouble, pai’ting, 
banishment, with manly facing of hardship and danger, came 
together again, and lived happily for ever afterwards, because, 
in spite of his folly in losing his ten thousand pounds at one 
sitting at cards, he was still true at heart to honour, home, 
wife, and children. 

There were worthy elderly folk, such as that Duke and 
Duchess of Eichmond, the father and mother of many children, 
who remained so content with each other, that busybodies of 
letter-writers were driven to chronicle how he would sit the 
entire evening an unheard-of ducal Darby by his J oan, who 
was faii'er in her matronly peace and bounty than the fairest 
of her famously beautiful daughters. 

There was still a large share of nature’s nobility, of re- 
verence, purity, constancy, and aU kindly and sweet domestic 
charities in some of these men and women, who have long 
gone home and taken their wages, else it would be worse for 
the England of this day. 

Lady Lucie was no sibyl to read the fortunes of the com- 
pany to Lady Bell, gaping lightly and genteelly with wonder. 
For that matter, Lady Bell was so full of the present that 
she did not want the future to enlighten her. But, if Lady 
Lucie had been inspired, she might have shuddered at some 
figures like wandering ghosts, that passed in succession 
before her and Lady Bell. One was that of a young man, 
with a furtive glance of the eyes looking out of his sallow 
face from beneath his long chestnut hair. That was Lord 
George Gordon, then the puj)pet of his witty sister-in-law, 
but at last to die in Newgate 


AN OLD QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM. 


9 


Iiady Lucie and Lady Bell made the most of the drawing- 
room after they had kissed hands, shown themselves, and 
looked at their neighbours. They exchanged a good deal of 
gossip with their friends on the war which was threatening, 
on any remote chance that existed of Lady Bell’s being 
named an honorary housekeeper of one of the palaces, or a 
seamstress of the queen, in right of the young lady’s poverty 
and noble birth. 

The ladies discussed what assemblies were in prospect, 
what marriages were in the wind, what caudle cups had been 
tasted, what lyings-in-state had been witnessed, what meet- 
ing had taken place at Chalk Farm that very morning, with 
one of the combatants run through the body. 

Then the two streamed out with the rest of the world, and 
employed their chairs and their dresses still farther on a 
round of visits. Withal, home was reached in time for an 
early dinner and a little well-earned repose before the even^ 
ing company, with the card-table, and Lady Bell at the 
spinnet playing, with the utmost pride and care amidst the 
attention and applause of her audience, the lessons which 
Lady Lucie had acquired from Mr. Handel. 


1 * 


CHAPTEE n. 


8T. BEVIS^S AND SQUIRE GODWIN. 



ITHIN three montlis from the date of the drawing-room, 


^ ^ Lady Lucie Penruddock was dead and buried. Her 
dowager’s allowance had lapsed to the Squire Penruddock 
of the day. The sale of the furniture in her lodging had 
done little more than pay the expenses of its late owner’s 
funeral. Lady Bell Ether edge, the one orphan child of an 
earl who had so squandered his estate in his lifetime, that it 
seemed rather proper and convenient that his title had died 
with him, was left destitute. Her sole inheritance consisted 
of her suit of mourning, with her other suits, and a little sum 
of pocket-money, sufficient to carry her down to Warwick- 
shire to the keeping of her mother’s unmarried brother and 
sister. Squire Godwin and Mrs. Die Godwin, of St. Bevis’s. 

The journey was made by posting under the escort of a 
maid and a man, appointed to see Lady Bell safe, by some 
friend of Lady Lucie’s, who took so much interest in the girl, 
for her grand-aunt’s sake. It was travelling awaj^ from the 
civilised world to Lady Bell, and it was travelling which 
lasted for several days, and was half-killing in the mingled 
grief and fatigue that attended on it. 

Lady BeU reached St. Bevis’s early on a dark, wet October 
evening. Eor so young a girl, she was sunk in depression 
and desolation ; since she had bidden farewell to all she had 


21 


ST. BEVIS’S AND SQUIRE GODWIN. 

known and loved. Slie liad never seen h.er mother’s kindred, 
for there had been a quarrel between them and her father 
soon after his marriage, while the particulars which Lady 
Lucie had let fall from time to time, that seemed to make 
little impression then, but were painfully present to Lady 
Bell’s mind now, were not reassuring. 

Lady Bell had tried for the last half-hour to catch a 
glimpse of the country round St. Bevis’s through the steam- 
ing chaise windows. The fact was, that all the country was 
new to her, except what, in her ignorance, she had called 
country when she had gone out of town for a day’s pleasure 
to Chelsea, or Eichmond, or Grreenwich. But the most ardent 
admirer of the country, pure and simple, will admit that the 
close of a dismal day in the fall of the year, when the fields 
are bare, and the woods half stripped, is hardly a propitious 
season for a novice making her first acquaintance wdth the 
country, even though she be not tui‘ning her back on the 
delights of youth, though the country inns at which she has 
lain have not been comfortless, though the roads are not 
quagmires, and though her nerves are not shaken with fears 
of highwaymen. 

‘^Lud, how horrid lonesome it do be here,” exclaimed the 
maid who sat inside with Lady Bell, while the man sat out- 
side with the driver. ‘‘We shall see a man hanging in 
chains at the next cross roads, I come bound. It would give 
me the dumps in no time to be kept down here. However 
do country bumpkins and their sweethearts make shift to 
exist in such a hole ? In course, it is quite difierent with 
the gentlefolks, who can have their country houses fuU of 
company.” The woman corrected herself, remembering, in 
time. Lady Bell’s circumstances. 

Lady Bell could not find fault, for she caught herself echo 
ing the reflection in her own style as she pressed her white 
face against the glass, “ AVhat can life be like here without 


12 


LADY BELL. 


a court, or assemblies, or drums, or even shops — and we 
have not passed a waggon or pack-horses since we left the 
great road.” 

At last the driver proceeded to draw up his horses, mud 
and mire to the fetlocks. There before Lady Bell rose a 
portion of a pillared fagade, belonging to a great house that 
had never been completely built, and of which the fragments 
were only dimly illuminated by the light from within, con- 
fined to a few windows, and by a lamp swinging over the 
entrance - door. The whole building had a cheerless and 
spectral air to Lady Bell. There was no want of life in it, 
however, such as it was. A troop of men, most of them 
in stable-boy’s jackets or country frocks, one or two in tar- 
nished livery, rushed out at the sound of wheels to hail 
the chaise, and shout for news before the travellers had time 
to alight. ‘‘Any word of the Foxlow races, driver, before 
you started?” “Were Nimble Dick’s dying speech and 
confession come out?” 

“ Shut your pipes, you rude rascals ; it is the young lady, 
the squire’s niece,” protested a more civilised voice than those 
of the others ; while a bloated, pursy man in slovenly black, 
who might be either butler or chaplain to Squire Godwin, 
stepped forward, opened the door, and helped the cramped, 
shivering girl out, amidst a slight cessation of the rough 
clamour. “ Your servant. Lady Bell Etheredge ; follow me.” 

He conducted her into a dreary unfui’nished hall on a vast 
scale, paused a moment, laid a flabby finger on his forehead, 
scratched his head under his wig, spoke to himself, but yet as 
it sounded in confidence to Lady Bell. “ Curse me if I know 
where I had better take her first. Mrs. Die is not to be seen 
at this hour, or it will be the worse for the person who sees 
her. Mrs. Kitty won’t leave Mrs. Die’s room to do the 
honours ; I think I had better take his niece to the squii*e 
himself, though we do interrupt his game.” 


ST. BEVIS'S AND SQUIRE GODWIN. 13 

They proceeded up a spacious staircase with the walls in a 
grimy edition of the original whitewash, — oak balustrades, 
but the space between filled with hempen rope, and the wide 
steps as innocent of the application of water as ever were the 
steps of stairs in any Hotel de Polignac of Paris, or StrozH 
House of Plorence. They traversed gusty unmatted corridors 
until they reached a room which bore some traces of habit- 
ableness and use. 

It was a moderately sized room, panelled and hung with 
portraits, as Lady Bell saw when her usher threw open the 
door after he had knocked. It was supplied with a carpet, 
table, and chairs, and had a fire blazing behind the dogs. 
Two gentlemen were in the room, sitting at the table engaged 
at cards, with wax candles, bottles and glasses al their 
elbows. The one who faced Lady Bell as she enteivd was a 
fac-simile of her conductor, except that the last was shaggier 
and dirtier, but not so bloated and pursy as his feUow. He 
looked up on the interruption, and, turning his head a little, 
so that his side-face could not be seen by his companion at 
table, winked warningly to the new comers. The other man, 
whose back was to Lady BeU, wore a velvet coat and had his 
hair in powder. He grumbled resentfully before he looked 
round. “ What the plague do you mean by bringing any 
one here at this hour, Sneyd?” 

“ It is your niece. Lady Bell Etheredge, squire. I thought 
you would like to see her at once, as Mrs. Die is not to be 
disturbed after supper,” answered the squire’s butler, as if 
he were delivering a carefully considered speech. 

The squire with a little “humph!” possibly meant to be 
inaudible, got up and turned round. “ My dear niece, I beg 
to welcome you to St. Bevis’s,” he said, in a voice cultivated 
and agreeable in spite of its slight hoarseness. He took 
Lady Bell by the hand, saluted her, sat down opposite to her 
and looked at her, giving her the opportunity of glancing 


14 


LADY BELL. 


with, a gleam of hopefulness at him. He was a handsome, 
nay, an elegant man in middle life, though his face was 
haggard with hard living and devouring anxiety. Notwith- 
standing the evident dilapidation of his house and the dis- 
order of his household, his dress was costly and fashionable, 

• — in every particular that of a well-endowed gentleman some- 
what foppish for his years. His spotless ruffles were of 
Mechlin, the ring on his linger was worth many diamonds, 
and as it was a delicately cut antique, it required the taste of 
a scholarly fine gentleman to appreciate it. 

Lady Bell experienced a feeling of relief. In Mr. Grodwin’s 
presence she was restored to the element in which she had 
been reared. From her first dismal glimpse of her future 
home she did not know what churlish boor she had expected 
her uncle to be. 

Unfortunately, that feeling of relief came too late to be of 
service to Lady Bell. If she had known it, her first inter- 
view with her uncle had been critical, and one moment had 
rendered it a failure. He was a man liable to excessive 
partialities or aversions where women were concerned. Had 
Lady Bell caught his fancy at first, and struck him as having 
the making of a charming young woman, though he might 
have borne a grudge at her father’s memory and been annoyed 
at her becoming dependent on him, he might also have felt 
pride in her, and been as kind an uncle as circumstances and 
character would have permitted. He might have gone so far 
as to make a pet of her, and thus have had a strange thread 
of gentleness introduced into the web of his life. How far 
the result would have been to Lady Bell’s advantage is a 
different matter. 

As it was. Squire Godwin saw Lady Bell first in her 
tumbled habit and bene hat, her face blue with cold, her eyes 
red with crying, her mouth relaxed with fasting. Lady Lucie’s 
excellent lessons as to holding herself up, walking and sitting. 


ST. BEVIS’S AND SQUIRE GODWIN. 1 5 

for tlie moment forgotten. Mr. Godwin set down Lady Bell, 
witLout hesitation, as a plain, unformed, weak-minded girl, 
of whose breeding Lady Lucie had made a mess, whose title 
sounded still more incongruously than poverty alone could 
have made it sound, who would be nothing save “ an infernal 
plague ” to him who had plagues enough without her. And 
Squire Godwin was a man who rarely departed from a con- 
clusion. 

The next words which her uncle addressed to Lady Bell 
were spoken with courtesy in their reserve, but they fell on 
her spirits, now beginning to rise, like so many bolts of ice. 

“ Sneyd will see that you get some refreshment before you 
retire for the night. You will meet Mrs. Die, and be put 
under her charge in the morning. Let me wish you a very 
good night. Lady Bell.” 

Down, fathoms down, went the dismayed girlish heart ; 
but, for as lightly as her uncle esteemed her breeding, then 
and thenceforth. Lady Bell walked out of the room, mar- 
shalled by Sneyd, with a more erect head and firmer step 
than those with which she had entered it. She did not salt 
the spiced beef, home-made bread, and mulled white wine 
with which Sneyd sought to regale her, with the tears which 
were ready to choke her. She responded loftily to his good- 
humoured attempts at entertaining her, so that he pro- 
nounced her in his mind “ a chip of the old block,” as proud 
and passionate as fire, like Mrs. Die herself — ^but trust her to 
be broken in by Mrs. Die and Mrs. Kitty together, the poor 
young my -lady ! 

Even after Lady Bell had been conducted to the dark, chill 
closet — all that there was for her room — which looked out on 
an unfinished wing of the house, where owls roosted and cats 
scrambled and miauled, she would not have given way 
before herself, so great was the mistake of Mr. Godwin that 
Lady Lucie’s instructions had not sunk into her grand 


LADY BELL. 


l6 

niece^s heart, had it not been for a physical, certainly not in 
itself heroic shrinking from darkness, and apprehension at 
the idea of ghosts — ^like that of Cock Lane— which caused 
Lady Bell at last to lay aside her youthful dignity, as Louis 
le Grand laid aside his wig, from between closed curtains, 
and to break down and sob herself to sleep, with the bed- 
clothes drawn tightly over her head. 


CHAPTEE m. 


MES. KITTY. 

^HE sound sleep of youth did much for Lady Bell. She 
awoke, comforted and refreshed, in her closet, — ^furnished, 
Spartan-like, with checked linen and hard wood, the window 
looking across at the turrets crumbling down before they had 
been all built, with yawning slits for their windows and 
rotting boards between the different levels, which might 
have accommodated a score of robbers as well as owls and 
cats. 

She was sad, but no longer in despair ; she even felt in- 
quisitive as well as hungry, and disposed to venture on a 
voyage of discovery in search of her aunt’s parlour and 
breakfast. 

Sneyd, the butler, in his unencouraged essays at conversa- 
tion the night before, had made Lady Bell acquainted with 
the habits of the family. The squire was never down in the 
morning till it was late, when he was at home, and that was 
but seldom, as he attended all the races. Lady Bell need not 
fear to stumble on her uncle, and be frozen to stone by his 
distant greeting. Neither did Mrs. Die show face at an early 
hour, according to Sneyd ; she lay a-bed half the day always, 
the whole day often. 

Indeed it appeared as if Sneyd’s caution against early 
rising, the reverse of the rule which the old fine lady. Lady 


i8 


LADY BELL. 


Lucie, had imposed, was to be illustrated by the practice 
of the whole household, including Sneyd himself. Lady 
Bell wandered doubtfully about the staircase — vast to her 
after her grand-aunt’s London lodging, and with its weather- 
stains and cobwebs more conspicuous by broad daylight — and 
about the wide corridors. She peeped into half-open doors 
of what seemed always empty rooms. She was startled by 
the striking of the clock over the entrance-door, and scared 
by the growling of a dog, but she did not meet a living 
creature. The fact was that such servants as were astir were 
in the stables and cow-house. 

At last a stout, red-cheeked country girl, in the extremity 
of rusticity to the town-bred eyes of Lady Bell, accustomed 
to a trim waiting- woman, instead of to a girl in a jacket, 
woollen apron, heavy frilled cap, and clamping clogs, stood 
arrested in the stranger’s way. 

The country girl bobbed curtseys, and stared with round 
eyes, which had more admiration in them than the squire’s 
eyes had been able to hold, at the other girl, — ^lily-faced, in 
a black tabby gown, black gloves, black silk stockings with 
clocks, the dress finished off by black shoes with high heels, 
a white apron and neckerchief, and a little white cap of her 
own poised on the top of the dark curls. She was taken 
altogether aback when Lady Bell asked the direction of Mrs. 
Die’s parlour. 

Sukey speedily recovered herself, and showed Lady Bell 
into a low-roofed room belonging to the older part of the 
house, which, like the squire’s room, was so far prepared for 
occupants, that it was matted, furnished with rush-bottomed 
chairs, had a table laid for breakfast, and a fire, lately 
kindled, smoking in the grate. But, except that there were 
both antique china and plate — alike so valuable that they 
were heir-looms — on the breakfast-table, this was all that 
could be said for Mrs. Die’s parlour. 


MRS. KITTY. 


19 


There was not a single article implying work, study, re- 
creation, or gentle accomplishments. There was not only none 
of the prints, medallions, and cabinets of curiosities to which 
Lady Bell had been accustomed as the approved ornaments 
of gentlewomen’s parlours, there was neither harpsichord nor 
Bxjinnet, tambour-frame, nor even wheel, nor book, — French 
or English, — not so much as a cookery-book with recipes 
written in a fine Italian hand, nor inkstand, nor bird’s cage, 
nor fl.ower-pot. 

The high square windows, to look from which compelled 
Lady Bell to stand on her tiptoes, commanded what had once 
been a garden-court, but it was now a veritable wilderness 
of rank vegetation and rotting weeds. 

Lady Bell was too thankful to turn from the prospect to 
await an approaching foots'tep, and to find that it belonged 
to a respectable-looking middle-aged woman. Lady Bell 
thought a superior upper servant, possibly the wife of Sneyd 
the butler, undoubtedly the housekeeper in her own person, 
as she carried a bunch of keys. 

The new-comer’s well-preserved quilted gown was pro- 
tected from soil and stain by an ample apron and cuffs. Her 
head in its morning cap was farther fenced from the keenness 
of the air, and from draughts by a hood hanging round her 
shoulders. “ Good morning to you. Lady Bell ; you arrived 
after supper, I hear, and you have not let the grass grow on 
your steps this morning. But your bread and milk is not 
ready yet ; you must wait till your betters be served. I 
have Mrs. Die’s chocolate to send up.” 

Lady Bell was offended by this speech. It was not 
exactly unfriendly, but it was brusque, with more than a 
suspicion of carping in the tone, and it was spoken with 
much of the coolness and freedom of an equal. 

Lady Bell was not naturally proud and passionate. Mr. 
Sneyd had misread the girl’s heart, ready to burst at her 


20 


LADY BELL. 


cold reception. Slie had been docile and affectionate to Lady 
Lncie — a strict disciplinarian like most old ladies of her 
regime. 

Lady Bell had no more than the generous spirit which 
every true and uncrnshed young nature asserts. But she 
had been brought up rigidly in this as in some other articles 
of faith, that it was her duty as a young lady of quality in 
the state of life to which she was called, both for her own 
sake and that of her neighbours, to keep servants in their 
proper place, and, while behaving to them with considera- 
tion, and if possible with affability, to be quick to check in 
them all encroachment and usurpation. 

When young ladies of fourteen adhere to precedents, they 
are not apt to make exceptions to the rule, and it is a very 
wonderful young'lady who does not blunder even in carrying 
out instructions. 

Lady Bell, if she had been shrewd beyond her years and 
knowledge of the world, might have suspected that there 
was something anomalous in the presence of so superior an 
upper servant in a house like Squire Grodwin^s. Lady Bell 
might even have been observant enough to detect that Mrs. 
Kitty’s accent on the whole was that of an educated woman 
habitually in better society than even an upper servant could 
then boast. But Lady Bell did not pause to make these 
deductions. 

^ ‘ I shall want my bread and milk in future as soon as I 
come down ; be so good as to see to it,” she commanded 
with great dignity. 

Mrs. Kitty stopped in preparing to heat a cup of chocolate 
in a chafing dish, and gave a sharp glance at Lady Bell, as 
much as to say, '‘You have soon begun, you mean to take 
the upper hand of me. Lady BeU, but you must have my 
consent first. I should just think I have more to do here 
than you.” 


MRS. KITTY. 


21 


Mrs. Kitty replied aloud with deliberation, ^‘Tou shall 
have your bread and milh when it is ready for you, and that 
is when I am ready to serve it ; for I don’t choose that a 
slut like Sukey shall meddle with my spoons, or bowls, or 
napkins; in fact, with aught save pewter-ware and kitchen 
towelling. If you choose to eat your breakfast with such 
help. Lady Bell, eat it then and welcome.” 

It may be recorded here, that Mrs. Kitty wronged Lady 
Bell by a common process of wrong. Mrs. Kitty supposed 
that all which could be understood of the miserable mystery 
of her relations with St. Bevis’s, was known to the girl Lady 
Bell, through Lady Lucie Penruddock, as well as it was 
known to Mrs. Kitty herself, and that Lady Bell must have 
come forewarned not to interfere with Mrs. Kitty. 

Por it was as Mrs. Kitty had said to herself, she had more 
to do with St. Bevis’s than the child of a daughter of the 
house, who had married and left it never to return. Mrs. 
Kitty had been born at St. Bevis’s as Lady Bell’s mother 
and Mrs. Die had been born. Mrs. Kitty had never quitted 
St. Bevis’s, though her position had not been, and could not 
be recognised ; and, in lieu of such recognition, she had 
slipped into the place of an aU-powerful, almost irresponsible 
servant, to whom the squire never spoke, but to whom he 
hardly ever dictated. 

It was not wise or well to affront Mrs. Kitty, only, as it 
happened. Lady BeU had been left ignorant. 

Lady Bell and Mrs. Kitty sat and exchanged silent hos- 
tiKties over Lady BeU’s basin of bread and milk, and Mrs. 
Kitty’s basin of coffee and plate of bacon. 

Lady Bell made a more minute inspection of Mrs. Kitty 
in her tidy and substantial dress. She was a square, solidly 
built, comely woman, with a short neck, large cheeks, low 
forehead, almost concealed by her head-gear, and with small 
twinkling eyes. 


22 


LADY BELL. 


Mrs. Kitty took no fnrtker notice of Lady Bell, since Mrs. 
Kitty’s cunning was the cunning of power. 

Lady Bell declined to condone the housekeeper’s offence, 
so far as to take the initiative in commencing a conversation, 
notwithstanding that her tongue ached to he wagging, and 
her nature craved some kind of sympathy. But Lady Bell 
would wait tiU she saw Mrs. Die ; it could not be long till 
that great event took place. This trust was summarily dis- 
posed of. 

Since you have brought no maid with you that I have 
heard tell of, Lady Bell,” stated Mrs. Kitty, with covert but 
evident depreciation, “you had as Hef see to 3mur own un- 
packing,” she suggested nonchalantly. “The fool of a 
woman who came with you is gone back with the man and 
the chaise. Bless us! what a fuss and cost,” protested Mrs. 
Kitty scornfully, “as if our pockets were lined with silver 
pennies, when the stage-coach comes once a week as nigh as 
within six miles, and the cross road is none so bad for a seat 
on a pillion. I had best tell you at once, that I can’t lend 
you a hand with your unpacking, neither can I let you have 
one of the girls. There is a deal to do in this house, and 
few enough to do it, if beds are to be made, and meals 
cooked, not to say floors scrubbed, and . clothes scoured. We 
want no additional peck of troubles — of that I can assure 
you.” 

“I did not suppose anybody wanted troubles,” corrected 
Lady Bell, a little impertinently. 

“ You mayn’t have seen so fine a place before,” continued 
Mrs. Kitty, looking Lady Bell hard in the face, “or such a 
heap of seryants ; but the last is mostly for the horses and 
dogs which the squire keeps to race and run with. The 
family coach is not out once in three months, so you had as 
well not pine for an airing ; and you had need to walk pre- 
cious seldom, if anybody is to be spared to walk with you.’* 


MRS. KITTY. 23 

Mrs. Kitty now felt she had gone some way in distancing 
and discomfiting an interloper like Lady Bell. 

Lady Bell clung to her single refuge ; she did not attempt 
to put down Mrs. Kitty this time ; she took no further notice 
of her challenge, she only asked — 

‘‘ When am I to he taken to my aunt, Mrs. Die ?” 

“When she sends for you. Lady Bell; and that may not 
he to-day nor to-morrow neither.” 

At the very moment that Mrs. Kitty ended the door opened, 
and Mrs. Die gave a fiat contradiction to her subordinate’s 
words hy walking into the room. 


OHAPTEE IV. 


MRS. DIE AND THE QUARTER SESSIONS, 

l^ES. DIE was a tall, gaunt; scarecrow of a woman with 
wild black eyes wbicb looked immense in size, and 
gleamed like coals of fire in tbeir boUow sockets. Her face, 
which in youth had been handsome — ^the Godwins had been 
a handsome family — was become the typical face of Queen 
Elizabeth, — of an old Jewess, — or of a witch before her time. 
Her dress was an open gown and petticoat of Indian cotton, 
the pattern representing huge birds of every hue. Her 
grizzled hair was drawn tightly back from her dark bony 
face, and rolled over its cushions behind and ‘before, while it 
was crowned by such an out-of-date fly cap as Lady Bell had 
never seen. 

Good heavens ! Mrs. Die, what are you doing here at 
this time of the day?” demanded Mrs. Kitty, with a direct- 
ness and energy which, while Lady Bell could not explain 
the tone, served as a slight salve to her own sore pride, — 
“you’ll have the spasms or a swoon before you are an hour 
older.” 

“ Never mind, Kitty,” declared Mrs. Die in a high harsh 
key, “I’ve business before me to-day. So this is Bell 
Etheridge,” she broke off abruptly, and, as if it were only at 
that moment that she remembered and observed her niece, — 
“never mind paying your duty to me, child,” as Lady BeU 


25 


MRS. DIE AND THE QUARTER SESSIONS. 

was venturing to approacli her. ‘‘What a shabby little 
body it is, and how we’ve fallen off for certain !” she said in 
a loud voice, aside to Mrs. Kitty, and then she went on, 
turning to Lady Bell again, while Mrs. Die stood like a man 
with her feet apart, and her back to the fire, toasting her 
hands held behind her to the warmth. “ What do you think 
that we’re to make of you, girl, eh ? Do you know that 
you’ve come to a ruined house ? St. Bevis’s has stood half 
built for five-and-thirty years, since my father’s time ; it will 
never be finished now, but will serve as a monument of pride 
and vanity, diinking and dicing. My brother, your uncle, 
owes fifty thousand pounds of gambling debts, which only 
lie over because you can take no more than the skin from the 
cat, and so long as the cat lives, he may win a race, or a 
match with the cocks, or a game of hazard occasionally, to 
pay off an instalment of his debt and his servants’ wages. 
That’s how we live ; but there were four executions in the 
house last year, which have stripped us pretty bare, as even 
your baby eyes may tell you. W e are more utterly at the dogs 
than your father the earl was, and he left you a beggar.” 

“I wish I had never come to beg from you. Aunt Dio,” 
protested Lady Bell, unable to restrain a sob, while, she 
covered her face with her trembling hands and shrank back 
and down as if she had received a blow. The instinctive cry 
and action softened her fierce examiner a little. 

“It is better you should learn the worst at once, Bell 
Etheredge,” Mrs. Die continued more gently ; “I did not 
say that you could help it ; I think none of us can help any- 
thing in our miserable lives. WTiat are you to make of 
yourself here ? ” 

“I’ll not be in your way,” asserted Lady Bell in her 
youthful desperation. “I’ll not eat grudged bits, which 
you do not have to give. I did not know that Uncle Uodwia 

was ruined, or that you would hate the sight of me. I’ll go 
2 


26 


LADY BELL. 


elsewtere. Oli ! why did you let the chaise go back without 
me?” 

“ What a prodigious fool you are, sure,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Die contemptuously, as if I had hate to spare for a child 
like you ; I have more to do with my hate, and where would 
you run to ? Don’t you know since the old dragon. Lady 
Lucie, who might have found you an establishment if she 
had really had the liking which she professed for you ” 

‘^Lady Lucie was my dearest, best friend,” interrupted 
Lady Bell passionately. 

Who has died and done nothing for you, any more than 
for her pug, if she had one,” went on Mrs. Die in cool deri- 
sion ; “so that we are all in the same boat, whether we like 
it or not, and must sink or swim together. There, girl, go 
work at your ruffles, or some other of your fiddle-faddle ac- 
quirements, to pass the time till some change offer. You are 
young yet ; perhaps a change will come to you. As for me, 
I am sick of the discussion. I have more in my head. Kitty, 
he was seen again last night — ^you need not deny it.” She 
turned to Mrs. Kitty with an appeal which was almost a 
threat. 

Mrs. Kitty, however surprised by Mrs. Die’s unusual 
appearance, was improving the time in washing up the 
breakfast china, having brought out from a cupboard a little 
hand-tub for the purpose. The prosaic proceeding was oddly 
at variance with all that was extraordinary and violent in 
Mrs. Die’s looks and conversation. 

“I warrant he’s staying at the Cross AVhips,” admitted 
Mrs. Kitty, with evident unwillingness; “but he may be 
there without seeking to get at you.” 

“ That’s a credible story, seeing what St. Bevis’s did for 
him, as if heU on earth could attract a man.” Mrs. Die re- 
jected the suggestion, her great eyes blazing with fire and 
scorn. “ I tell you what, Kitty, I’m going to ride over to 


MRS. DIE AND THE QUARTER SESSIONS. 


27 


tlie quarter sessions again, to sIlow him up, and to force that 
hypocrite of a cousin of his, who could not save his own 
kinsman, and don’t care that I am left to suffer from his 
base degradation, to bind over Cholmondely to keep the 
peace, and to cease to persecute me,” she ended, with a 
terrible intensity of aversion and disgust in her calmness. 

“Inform the squire — take counsel with him,” advised Mrs. 
Kitty doubtfully. 

“ Never ! ” screamed Mrs. Die, clapping her hands together. 
“What ! to bo twitted by him with the past ? to be reminded 
that he did it ? that a fine Lon’ on gentleman like my brother 
is a fiend incarnate compared to a poor sold and sunk sot ? 
I’ll take it into my own hands. I’ll ride over to the quarter 
sessions this very day, and, what’s more. I’ll carry this midge 
of a niece. Bell Etheredge, with me, to give her a little 
lesson in men and manners.” 

“ You’ll let me go with you also, after you have changed 
your dress, and got on your habit ?” 

Mrs. Kitty addressed her mistress soothingly. 

“ Well, yes, I suppose I may want you,” granted Mrs. Die, 
calming down, and . considering, “Come, find my toggery, 
Kitty, 4nd put it on ; and you, miss — ^Lady BeU, whatever 
they caU you — make ready, and I’ll be better than my word,” 
she grinned, ironically. “I’ll be extreme kind, a doting 
aunt, taking you junketing, and showing you life, on your 
very first day too.” 

Lady BeU, overlooked and forgotten, had stood aside 
during the late coUoquy. In the girl’s , eyes she had ob- 
tained proof positive that her aunt, Mrs. Die, was not only 
as wUd but as mad as any inmate of Bedlam. Was it not 
sufficient that the wretched woman, older than Lady BeU’s 
mother would have been had she been alive, believed that 
she was the object of an unscrupulous passion? 

Doubtless, Mrs. Kitty made a feint of agreeing with Mrs. 


28 


LADY BELL. 


Die, to flatter and coax her, as mad people, who were not 
locked up and chained, were coaxed. 

‘‘For certain, Mrs. Die looks as old and as horrid as the 
hills,” reflected Lady Bell hastily, “with those sticking out 
bones and ploughed furrows in her cheeks. She must be 
many a long day past love and lovers. But I must humour 
her too,” she considered anxiously, “ lest she should conceive 
a fresh access of ill-will — I think she was minded to let me 
alone after the attack, — and seek to poison or throttle me. 
Mrs. Kitty will never permit that,” she decided, in great 
trepidation, “though I’ve annoyed her; but she is in her 
senses, and looks to be Mrs. Die’s keeper. My uncle could 
not know me in bodily peril, and sit and lean back in his 
chair, and look into the air above my head.” 

Thrilling with this new, outrageous apprehension, which, 
yet in its panic, served to divert the young mind from its 
desolation. Lady Bell did Mrs. Die’s bidding with the utmost 
dispatch, put on her hat and habit, and hurried back to the 
parlour. 

Mrs. Die, in her hat and habit, was not so crazy looking, 
and was more like a lady of birth and breeding, than she 
had been in her morning gown. She directed the horses — 
there was usually no lack of horses at St. Bevis’s — to be 
brought to the door, and ascertained that Lady Bell was fit 
to guide the pony allotted to her, while Mrs. Kitty was 
mounted double behind a groom. 

“ Sneyd may come with us if he likes, and is not fright- 
ened for his master; or Greenwood may attend,” Mrs. Die 
said condescendingly. 

“It is a mighty queer expedition, just like Mrs. Die,” 
murmured the last — the chaplain who had come out under 
the colonnade to see the party start ; “ but I’ll ride after you 
to see that justice is done, and for the sake of the young 
lady,” he whispered to Mrs. Kitty. 

“ If you don’t come for the sake of the old one, I think 


MRS. DIE AND THE QUARTER SESSIONS. 29 

you had better let it alone, sir,” Mrs. Kitty rebuffed him 
shortly. 

It was a ride of an hour and a half for the party with 
half-a-dozen dogs at their heels, to reach the country town 
where the quarter sessions were held. Mrs. Die gave no 
sign of knowing anybody, either among the country people 
in great coats trudging to market, or the smarter towns- 
people lounging by the low-browed shops and tall brick 
houses, though countrymen and tradesmen, vdth their women- 
kind, saluted and turned to stare at the group. 

Mrs. Die rode straight with her friends to the court-room 
door, and having alighted, walked in, and up to the table 
round which the gentlemen in drab, purple, and green coats, 
and muddy boots and tops, were sitting with their papers 
before them. 

A case of horse-stealing had just been disposed of, and a 
miserable man was being led out, marching along by the 
turnkeys, while his friends, in the shape of sidlen men and 
weeping women, were pressing round him. 

Mrs. Die tapped on the table with her riding-whip. 

“I have come to demand your protection, gentlemen,” 
she said, with a raised voice, ‘‘from a man, one 'WiUiam 
Cholmondely, who persecutes me with his addresses.” 

One gentleman, in a coat of a precise cut, with a plain 
cravat and a severe cast of face above it, winced and reddened. 

The other men roused themselves, stuck their tongues in 
their cheeks, dug their thumbs into their own or their 
neighbours’ sides, and looked as if they expected something 
peculiarly interesting and enlivening, out of the course of 
regular business. 

One of the elder men present took snuff, and whispered to 
his next neighbour that he remembered that woman as the 
handsomest jade in England. 

“Zounds! a lady shall not demand protection and be 
refused it, you may depend upon that, Mrs. Die,” said a free- 


30 


LADY BELL. 


and-easy, outspoken gentleman, who loved a row. “Wkat 
does tkis rapscallion Okolmondely do to molest you ?” 

“He waylays me and my housekeeper; he drops me letters 
continually ; he threatens to do hoth for me and himself, if 
I don’t pay him money to stop his vile tongue and pen,” 
answered Mrs. Die furiously. 

“Mrs. Die Grodwin,” interrupted the gentleman in the 
precise cut coat, speaking sternly, “permit me one question. 
Were you not at one time afhanced to this William Ohol- 
mondely ?” 

“Yes; I was promised to him in marriage twenty years 
or more ago,” replied Mrs. Die disdainfully ; “ before this 
girl, my niece, was born;” and at the words, eye-glasses, 
which had already been roaming curiously over Lady Bell, 
were arrested and fixed upon her with keen criticism. 

“And was not the marriage broken off,” Mrs. Die’s an- 
tagonist continued indignantly, “ because your brother, 
Squire Grodwin, engaged Cholmondely in a sporting transac- 
tion (I shall not stop to say of what nature), the brunt of 
which, falling on this wretched fellow, not only stripped him 
of every acre and guinea he possessed, but blackened his 
reputation beyond redemption, compelled him to flee the 
country for a season, and reduced him to associate with the 
very dregs of society on his return ? Is not that a correct 
statement of facts, madam ?” 

“ Perfectly correct, sir,” assented Mrs. Die promptly, 
making him a superb curtsey. “ But you have given no 
reason why the hound should lie in wait* to yelp and snarl 
at me.” 

The result of the complaint was that the quarter sessions 
granted Mrs. Die Godwin the protection which she claimed, 
binding over William Cholmondely, late of Thornhurst, to 
keep the peace under a penalty of one thousand pounds. 

Lady Bell’s bewildered, appalled young eyes read a few 
lines of a strange page of life. 


CHAPTEE Y. 


AN IMPRISONED PRINCESS. 

rriHE family did not meet at dinner, the only meal at which 
they professed to gather, the day after Lady Bell came 
to St. Bevis’s. But on the following day she had again an 
opportunity of seeing her uncle. She was summoned into 
the dining-room, where she had seen him on the evening of 
her arrival, in order to sit down to table with the rest. 

The Squire, standing near the foot of the table, made her 
a little mocking bow. May I flatter myself country air 

does not ” he left the sentence unfinished as if he had 

forgotten her . existence before he could conclude his speech. 
He began carving the meat in the middle of Mr. Green- 
wood’s saying grace. “The odds are upon Skyflyer,” he 
observed presently in a low tone to the chaplain, and a little 
later in the meal he made an investigation of the same 
authority with regard to a certain horse-ball. He spoke to 
no one else, neither did Mrs. Die directly address her brother, 
though she kept growling audibly at him from her end of 
the table, like a dog that will give tongue and show its 
teeth, though it knows that the protest will pass unheeded, 
nay, that perhaps the protester will have punishment dealt 
to it for its pains. 

“Nothing but mutton and fowls, Kitty,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Die ; “ we’ll be at the boards themselves soon. No, I know 


32 


LADY BELL. 


that you can’t help it. Burgundy ? Don’t we wash our 
hands in Burgundy, it goes so fast, Sneyd ? Short of wet 
and dry fruits for kickshaws, and no more to be had from 
Cleveburgh till we’ve cleared our scores ; that will be long 
enough, not till after our tricks with stable-boys and gambling- 
house keepers beat cleverer knaves’ tricks.” 

That dinner was a fair sample of following dinners. 

Lady Bell lived on at St. Bevis’s. She had no other re- 
source, and found that her fate, piteous as it was, did not 
prove so unbearable as she had feared. It is the experience 
of most of us, particularly at the plastic age of fourteen. 

The Squire, who had spent the greater part of his youth 
in London, though he had deserted the town or found it too 
hot for him, was hardly ever at home: Newmarket, Epsom, 
Ascot, races of local celebrity, local gaming clubs, and card 
matches, pretty much divided his time. On the occasions 
when he was at home, his treatment of Lady Bell was to 
ignore her presence. 

If a sister of Mr. Godwin’s had happened to marry a 
spendthrift nobleman, and husband and wife had died, 
leaving a puny vapid girl, it was no fault of his, and he 
was not called upon to cumber himself with considerations 
regarding her welfare. 

Squire Godwin succeeded in impressing Lady Bell more 
deeply than all the fine gentlemen whom she had seen at her 
grand-aunt’s, and in striking her with awe ; but she could 
not complain greatly of his overlooking her, since she, poor 
child, felt tempted to shrink out of his sight. 

Mrs. Die was a woman half crazy with wrongs, utterly 
wanting in principle and self-restraint, and using strong 
stimulants; but, as she had said of her hate, she had too 
much to do brooding over her fate and fighting with her 
enemies, to trouble herself by tormenting Lady Bell. 

Mrs. Die let the girl alone for the most part, unless when 


AN IMPRISONED PRINCESS. 


33 


heryoutli and opening prospects, nnbliglited, however slender, 
pierced her annt with the sting of recollection. Even then 
Mrs. Die would content herself with a passing taunt at the 
girl’s girlishness, untold fortunes, and imagined inspirations, 
and forget all about her the next moment. 

Mrs. Kitty’s smaller nature and comparative leisure from 
introspection and desperate schemes, left her more at liberty 
to cherish a grudge and a jealousy, and to visit them con- 
tinually, like the dropping of water, on the head of a hap- 
less, defenceless victim. 

But Mrs. Kitty, too, had an engrossing interest and occu- 
pation, which was not snubbing Lady Bell. Mrs. Kitty had 
room in her narrow heart for a slavish devotion, the more 
ardent that it flowed in a single confined channel, and that 
devotion was at once lavished and concentrated on Mrs. Die. 

In the old days, when Mrs. Die had been a brilliant, ill- 
regulated, reckless girl, she had taken by storm the heart of 
the ungifted, branded dependant — reared and retained at St. 
Bevis’s in the spirit of a coarse tolerance — ^by the heedless 
generosity which had overleaped the gulf between the girls, 
and had raised Mr s. Kitty to a convenient place in Mrs. Die’s 
confidence and regard. 

Mrs. Kitty’s hands were full not only with grasping tightly 
such reins of domestic government as were left at St. Bevis’s, 
but with protecting Mrs. Die from herself and her neigh- 
bours, and cherishing the lost woman so far as she would 
suffer herself to be cherished. 

Notwithstanding there were pullings down in her airs for 
Lady BeU, which, as she grew accustomed to the process, did 
not hurt the girl much, only put her on her mettle and 
provoked her to undesirable pertness. 

There were little deprivations in what comforts and luxu- 
ries of soft pillows, hot water, apples, nuts, prunes, were 
going at St. Bevis’s— a piece of petty malice which might 
2 «- D 


34 


LADY BELL. 


cause Lady Bell’s young bones, blood, and appetite to crave 
and cry out, and her sense of fairness and honour to smart, 
but which did not press hardly on a healthy girl already 
trained to some measure of self-denial, as such girls were 
commonly trained. What was worse, there was the sedulous 
suspicious guarding of Lady Bell fi’om ever coming near 
Mrs. Die in any moment of weakness or kindred kindness on 
Mrs. Die’s part. Mrs. Kitty took care that there should not 
be the most distant danger of Lady Bell’s stepping between 
them, and ousting Mrs. Kitty from the place which she 
prized so highly, that she fancied the whole world must prize 
it too, as the recipient of Mrs. Die’s unhappy secrets. But 
Lady Bell did not covet the post which was thus denied her. 

This was the trifling amount of vengeance — even more 
trifling in sound than in reality — which, so far as it appeared, 
was all Mrs. Kitty chose to inflict on Lady Bell for coming 
to St. Bevis’s at all, and after coming for taking it upon her 
to give orders to Mrs. Kitty as if she were a common servan-J 
— the servant of a minx like Lady Bell, poorer than Mrs. 
Kitty herself, and doomed to hang as another burden on the 
Godwins, making up the dead weight under which the house 
was tottering to its fall. 

Mr. Sneyd and Mr. Greenwood, the remaining authorities, 
with the exception of the bailifiPs who were billetted at St. 
Bevis’s every month or two, were good-natured scamps and 
vagabonds, each according to his cloth, who not uncharac- 
teristically experienced a lingering sentiment of shame, pity, 
and tenderness, of which their master was destitute, where 
the young girl. Lady Bell, was concerned. The butler and 
the chaplain did not resent, like Mrs. Kitty, Lady Bell’s 
obstinately refusing to consent to any freedom of speech and 
bearing on their part. They even applauded her for it, 
crying. Curse them. Lady Bell was game. She was a proud, 
delicate-minded young lady, who deserved another fate, 


AN imprisoned princess. 


35 


whicli they would have procured for her, if it had Leen in 
their power, and had not cost them too much. They did 
what they could. 

Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Sneyd conformed themselves, 
where Lady Bell was in question, to her notions of propriety, 
and flattered and won her to some friendly feeling towards 
them in their debasement, by the respect which they showed 
her and the trouble which they took to be of use to her. 

Mr. Greenwood offered Lady Bell humbly his valuable 
assistance in the practice of penmanship and the study of 
French fables, to which she set herself, in accordance with 
a promise to her dead friend, with a sort of dull childish 
fidelity to the letter, and with a hopeless doggedness of 
spirit. 

Mr. Sneyd exerted himself to ride out with Lady Bell. 
Nobody interfered with the men’s performance of these good 
offices, which formed an agreeable, and a reclaiming element 
in the worthless tenor of their lives. 

At first St. Bevis’s was horribly, heavily dull to Lady Bell ; 
for there were no visitors and no visits. The Squire did not 
bring company to St. • Bevis’s ; Mrs. Die had long retired 
from her world. The appeal to the quarter sessions remained 
for months the solitary episode which broke the dreary mono- 
tony of Lady Bell’s life. 

But th^ oppression of dullness grew lightened by custom 
and in time, though not from Lady Bell’s acquiring rapidly 
country tastes, not even after sloppy mid- winter had given 
place to the rosy-tipped buds of spring. 

^ Natui’e, though for the most part accessible to all, requires 
an introduction to her court, and a suit paid to her after 
the fashion of sovereigns, before she will bestow her re- 
wards. 

In Lady Bell’s day, rude nature was at a discouid ; such 
nature as was sought after, praised, and worshq)ped, was 


36 


LADY BELL. 


tricked-out, transformed, artificial nature. This was not the 
nature of the neglected, sodden fields, the waste lands, the 
hovels of cottages, with their sometimes savagely ignorant 
and always uncared-for occupants, and the stony, rutted 
roads, like water-courses, all about St. Bevis’s. . 

Besides, youth when it has been town-bred, and if it have 
not the instinctive passion for nature, does not, in the order 
of things — in the fantastic extravagance of its emotions and 
the lethargy of its weariness — have recourse to the last earthly 
refuge of well-balanced, wise old age. 

Lady Bell, as her past life faded like a dream — so that 
London drawing-rooms, public gardens, royal birthdays. Lord 
Mayor’s shows, satin and spangles, hautboys and French 
horns, became the merest far-away visions and echoes — 
adopted ingenious devices, not unlike those of a prisoner, to 
employ her energies and help her to spend her days. 

She not only wrote copies, conned French and read history 
for Mr. Grreenwood, she executed intricate feats of stitching 
and embroidery, with such materials as she could command, 
entirely for her own gratification. She had learned a little 
drawing, principally to enable her to trace patterns for her 
work, and she now accumulated patterns which would serve 
her for the “flowering” of ruffles and aprons till she was 
ninety-nine, if her eyes stood out. 

The closet where she slept, which was all that she could 
claim as a privileged place of resort and retirement, was not 
only the haunt peopled by innumerable girlish fancies, but 
she exercised her skill within its bounds, preserving her 
health of body and mind in finding there never-ending 
objects of interest and amusement. 

With a Kttle childish make-believe, the closet was curiously 
and elaborately adorned for no other eyes than her own. The 
walls were covered with her patterns, the curtains were draped 
and looped according to her device. On the chinmey-pieco 


AN IMPRISONED PRINCESS. 37 

were tinted fan-sticks, thread-papers, cock’s feathers, imita- 
tion flowers. 

Her little bird which a farm-boy had caught for her, and 
her kitten which had strayed into the habitable part of the 
house from a colony among the ruins, were trained by her to 
form a happy family. 

Thus the solitary girl occupied and entertained herself as 
an imprisoned princess might have sought to improve and 
beguile the hours, not altogether unhappily, for Lady Bell 
was clever, her temper was naturally cheerful, and in youth 
the spirit is elastic, fit to rise again buoyantly after a blow, 
to build new castles in the air, and to remain uncrushed by 
mere neglect. 

Lady Bell had not long time given her to pursue her own 
course and the even tenor of her way at St. Bevis’s. In the 
first spring of her stay, about six months after her arrival, 
the great man of the neighbourhood. Lord Thorold, c«ame 
down to his place of Brooklands, on the eve of his marriage, 
accompanied by a large party, including his intended bride 
and her family, and feasted the public in his house and 
grounds, thrown open in honour of the occasion. 

Squire Godwin chose to accept the invitation not only for 
himself, but for his household. Either he was unwilling to 
give way to the evil odour in which he was held, or he felt 
inclined to test it, or he desired to propitiate the magnate. 

Whatever the motive, the result was the same ; an order 
was issued which even Mrs. Die did not dispute, though she 
had not been in public save at the quarter sessions, not even 
so far as to hear Mr. Greenwood preach in the little church 
close at hand, of which Squire Godwin was the patron, for 
these dozen years and more. The whole family at St. Bevis’s 
were to grace Lord Thorold’s wedding rejoicings. 


CHAPTEE VI. 


FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. 

TT is an ill wind which, blows nobody good,” Lady Bell 
thought, rising with the alacrity of her ^^ears to join 
the pleasure-seekers. 

She ransacked her trunks, and went into high dress — the 
extremely high dress of Lady Lucie’s order and era. Once 
more Lady Bell put on a peach-blossom coloured paduasoy, a 
muslin neckerchief drawn through the straps of her white 
silk stays, and a Eubens hat above her powdered curls, 
and started abroad to flutter like her companion butter- 
flies in the sunshine and splendour of high life and its 
holiday. 

Mrs. Die, sitting opposite Lady Bell in the family coach, 
so seldom in use, was not so inappropriate in costume as in 
physiognomy. The fabric of ladies’ gowns possessed in those 
days the advantage of lasting for generations ; country 
fashions were not expected to change above once or twice in 
a lifetime. Mrs. Die’s dead-leaf coloured cut velvet, her lace, 
and the few jewels which, as heirlooms of the Godwins, had 
not been conflscated, were not amiss for an unhappy, haunted 
lady of quality. 

Mrs. Kitty in her mode cloak and bonnet, and black satin 
mufi“, formed a creditable waiting gentlewoman. 

But the group, however stared at and commented upon. 


ROM SOYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. 


39 


remained isolated and apart after they had entered the great 
gateway, and joined the rest of the Warwickshire world, high 
and low. 

The guests were meant to mix in the sports,- and to pro- 
menade among the refreshment tents, and about the spaces 
allotted for games and dancing, and to sit on a green terrace 
listening to a band of music, and witnessing a little wedding- 
drama, “writ” for the occasion, in which the real bride and 
bridegroom, with a master of the ceremonies, and several 
nymphs to serve as the indispensable chorus, were the actors. 

But Lady Bell wearied of the spectacle, and began to fret 
secretly at her strict spectatorship of the play, though the 
May weather was fine, and the scene in the gay young green 
of the season, and the lively colours of the holiday company, 
was very effective. 

After Lady Bell had decided hastily that the bride — a great 
fortune — however languishing and abounding ,in airs, and 
however bejewelled, was far behind the court ladies whom 
Lady Bell had seen ; that the bridegroom looked not quite 
sober at that moment ; that the company were in keeping 
with the* king and queen of the feast, she ceased to mind 
them exclusively. 

She admired idly the red cloaks of the country girls, seen 
among the shrubbery like poppies in corn. She turned to 
watch a fleet of swans on an artificial lake beyond the turf 
stage on which the chief show had been held. 

At last, neglected as Lady Bell was by Mrs. Die and Mrs. 
Kitty, who snarled and made their own observations, and for- 
gotten by Mr. Greenwood, who was with the Squire betting 
in the centre of a shooting-match. Lady Bell rashly ventured 
to stroll away from the others, trusting to find them where 
she had left them. She fancied she would like to inspect the 
swans more narrowly, to see if there were any of the silver 
pheasants of which she had heard, in the bushes, to look at. 


40 


LADY BELL. 


and smell at lier leisure tlie fragrant flowering lilacs and 
thorns. 

Lady Bell was punished for her enterprise. There was a 
mixed company at Brooklands that day, as there was wont to 
he at similar entertainments. Such gatherings were more 
dangerous even than public assemblies like riddotos or 
Eanelagh, because, in the latter case, the rules of admission 
placed a check on the guests. There a disguised highway- 
man, flush of money, might, if he were inclined for mild 
amusement, impose upon a master of the assembly, and dance 
cotillons and drink negus with honest folk ; but he must be in 
disguise, and act up to his character. Here a desperate 
penniless vagabond could intrude with the wild hope of 
mending his broken fortunes. Not only were simple boors 
from far and near, in their clean smocks and knots of ribbons, 
collected and regaled free from charge at Brooklands, but 
with them came disreputable hangers-on at the country 
houses and the wayside inns, servants out of place, discharged 
soldiers, scamps of every description, attracted by a day’s 
rough junketing, and possible profit. 

Lady Bell learnt, in her painful experience, thaf a hand- 
some young lady of fifteen years of age, richly dressed, and 
separated from her party, was in perilous circumstances, in 
such a scene. 

She had discerned that she had gone farther than she had 
intended in an unfrequented direction, and had turned to 
retrace her steps along a path between high hazel bushes, 
when a man, in a horseman’s cloak, still worn off the stage, 
rounded a corner, and intercepted her by stopping short and 
standing directly in her way. 

Though to Lady Bell horsemen’s cloaks were not uncommon 
accoutrements for travellers, and men whose changes of suit 
were not numerous, yet this great, hideous, hide-all of a cloak 
— exactly such a cloak as may be worn by the Stranger in 


FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. 4 1 

Kotzebue’s drama, to this day — was attended witb the result 
of investing its wearer with mystery. The air of ‘that cloak 
alone sent a thrill through poor Lady Bell, while she had an 
instinctive consciousness that the riding-boots seen beneath 
the cloak were filthy and tattered. Above it, set in the 
unshorn Ishmaelite face over which the three-cornered hat was 
cocked, and which she had never seen before, were two 
bloodshot eyes, that in their tendency to leer, inspected her 
sharply. 

Lady Bell tried to pass without speaking, and when that 
was in vain, she assumed her grandest air, and said, with 
the tremor* in her voice running through its imperative- 
ness — 

‘‘Pray, sir, let me pass.” 

“Not so fast, young lady,” replied the man in a thick 
harsh voice, but with the accent of a man of education ; “I 
want speech with one of your sort — ^perhaps with you in 
particular. Ain’t you young Lady Bell Etheredge ? ” 

“And what if I be?” demanded Lady Bell, in doubt and 
dismay for the consequences of the admission, yet not seeing 
how she could avoid it, while she rued her folly bitterly. 

“A vast deal in my favour, if you be, my young lady,” 
replied her challenger ivith a mock wave of his hand, and a 
flourish of his hat revealing the absence of a wig, “ scratch ” 
or “ bag,” to hide the thin and almost white hair of a head 
which had been blanched betimes in the ways of vice. “I 
wish you to tell me if Mrs. Die Godwin has come here. I 
have the strongest and tender est reasons for the inquiry,” 
he protested, with a loud laugh. 

Then this was her aunt Die’s terrible suitor, whom her 
Uncle Godwin had destroyed ? This was that Cholmondely 
who would not leave off seeking revenge, after the cruel 
kindness of the Godwins had changed to hardly more cruel 
hatred, by flaunting his degradation in Mrs. Die’s face, and 


42 


LADY BELL. 


persecuting lier with, her old letters and love-tokens, and 
wringing money from the woman who detested and spurned 
him? 

Lady Bell had heard that he had threatened to blow out 
either his own or his mistress’s brains — it was a toss up 
which ; but as she would be only too glad to get rid of him, 
he rather thought the lady’s brains would have the pre- 
ference. Perhaps he had a pistol beneath his cloak at this 
moment, and might begin by practising his aim on Lady 
Bell. She gave a gasp before she delivered her answer — 
“ When I quitted Mrs. Die she was sitting on the terrace 
with the main part of the company.” 

“ By heavens, that will not serve my purpose!” swore the 
man; then he added, either by way of intimidation or because 
he was three-fourths desperate and dangerous, “ I wonder 
how it would do to take you in her stead,” and caught Lady 
Bell by the wrist. 

“Unhand me, unhand me, sir!” cried Lady Bell, striving 
to free her hand, and when she did not succeed, uttering a 
shrill scream before the man could clap his hand on her 
mouth. 

To Lady Bell’s unbounded relief the scream brought a 
champion to her aid without a moment’s delay. 

A gentleman, who must have been walking behind her, 
ran forward, shouting, “Leave alone the lady!” then, as a 
recognition ensued, he vociferated, “Be off with you, W'ill 
Cholmondely ; I have screened you as a fallen gentleman in 
distress, before now, but if it has come to this, that you are 
to fright and prey on ladies in public places. I’ll have nothing 
more to say to you. I’ll have you up to justice my- 
self.” 

Cholmondely growled something half inaudibl}' of not de- 
signing the young lady any harm, of having as good a right 
to be there as any Bully Trevor, of Trevor Court, among 


FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. 


43 


them. He slunk away, nevertheless, and left Lady Bell to 
her deliverer. 

This gentleman, so well met, ought to have been long of 
wind as of leg, befitting the young prince come to the rescue 
of the young princess. On the contrary, however, he was 
finding as much difiiculty, though the impeding cause "was 
different, in recovering his breath as Lady Bell was finding 
in recovering hers. 

He was a stout, florid man of sixty, bull-necked, short if 
firm on the legs, and wearing the brown coat and scarlet 
vest, which in one style of man preceded the blue coat and 
yellow vest identified with American republicanism and 
Charles James Fox. He was not an altogether uncomely, 
elderly gentleman, but he was narrow-browed and heavy- 
jowled, and showed himself at once extremely choleric. Even 
while complying with the form of standing with his hat in 
his hand he was rating Lady Bell soundly for getting him 
out of breath and into collision with a scamp. 

“What were you doing at an affair of this sort all alone, 
ma’am ? Han’t you been told of the villain Hackman shoot- 
ing Miss Eae at the door of Covent Garden Theatre ?” 

After he was a little mollified by the evident inexperience 
of the culprit, by the dewy freshness of the weeping eyes 
and the child-like pout of the quivering lips, he still scolded, 
though he extended his scolding, causing it to fall less 
heavily on the individual head. 

“Bless my soul, you’re a very young lady; somebody ought 
to be taking charge of you. Whom do you belong to?” 

Lady Bell was affronted in the middle of her gratitude, for 
she was Lady Bell Etheredge — she was not likely to forget 
that, though she had suffered humiliation ; in fact, the more 
she was humbled the more she clung to the remembrance of 
liow, until she had come to St. Bevis’s, she had been treated 
with the respect due to her rank. 


44 


LADY BELL. 


But she bethought herself that doubtless this imperious 
old gentleman had daughters of her age Avhom he was in the 
habit of hectoring over, that thus it was by a not unfriendly, 
fatherly forgetfulness he took her to task ; so, in place of 
letting herself grow indignant, she looked up in his face with 
a disarming confidingness in her dark eyes, and spoke out 
her thoughts frankly: “I daresay, sir, if I had been a 
daughter of yours, I should not have been suffered to expose 
myself. But I am Lady Bell Etheredge, and as my father 
and mother and Lady Lucie Penruddock are all dead, I am 
staying with Squire Godwin.” 

She stopped there, as if that were sufficient explanation of 
her loneliness. 

The listener replied in a tone of curious mortification and 
irritation, as of a vain man petted to the sensitiveness of a 
girl on the oddest points. 

A daughter of mine ! madam — my lady, I crave leave to 
tell you that I have not the honour to have a daughter, nor 
a son neither, for that matter, whether bantling or young 
lady or gentleman.” He paused, with a shade of shame at 
the ridiculousness of his annoyance. “No matter, you are 
Lady Bell Etheredge, and you are staying with Squire 
Godwin,” he repeated, settling and shaking his double chin 
dogmatically in his cravat; “that is queer enough, since he 
is an old political ally of mine. It is business with him 
which brings me now to this part of the country, and I 
thought I should like to look in on Lord Thor old’s party in 
the by-going — the better for you, Lady Bell — the better for 
you, and we’ll hope not the worse for me in the long-run,” 
he told her emphatically. 

He went .on again, as if pondering over and digesting her 
statement, not without an accent of satisfaction. “ Your 
father the Earl, and your mother the Countess, are dead a 
number of years ago, I knew that, of course, and Lady Lucie 


FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. 


45 


Penruddock — I think I have heard of her as a lady of repute 
and discretion. And so you have taken up your quarters — 
cold quarters, eh ? — at St. Bevis’s.” 

Lady Bell would have been not merely affronted, but 
mortally offended, by the freedom of the last words, had 
they not been spoken abstractedly, like the words of a man 
accustomed to lead an autocratic, solitary life, and to speak 
to himself for lack of a qualified audience. 

He wound up by stretching out his hand to take that of 
Lady Bell and by making the proposal — ‘‘ Come, Lady Bell, 
I shall lead you back to your guardians, and renew my ac- 
quaintance with Squire Godwin.” 

Lady Bell submitted, and when she reached the spot 
where she had left her aunt, she found Mrs. Die with Mrs. 
Kitty in high dudgeon, declining so much as to give an 
account of their stewardship to Mr. Greenwood, who was 
looking about in consternation for Lady Bell. 

As for Squire Godwin, he was lolling against a tree a little 
apart, his arms folded, his chin in the air, his eyes half 
closed ; if he had not been standing he might have been fast 
asleep. 

Lady Bell’s companion, Mr. Trevor, of Trevor Court, 
stepped up to Mr. Godwin, and saluted him pointedly, “Your 
servant, sir., I hope you’ve not forgotten me, since I have 
come to the neighbourhood on purpose to transact a piece of 
business with you, and I have brought back your niece. Lady 
Bell Etheredge, who has strayed and nearly come to grief in 
this crowd.” 

“ I am obliged to you, Mr. Trevor ; I remember you per- 
fectly.” Mr. Godwin acknowledged both the man and the 
favour with the utmost suavity and the least interest. 

“It is about the purchase of that little corner of your 
Staffordshire property which is next to mine,” explained 
Squire Trevor brusquely. “As for the service to Lady Bell,” 


46 


LADY BELL. 


he added in an undertone, looking after the girl while she 
withdrew to the other side of Mrs. Die and Mrs. Kitty, “ I 
make bold to hope I may establish a right to serve her be- 
fore we have done with our business. Squire Godwin.’’ 

“ With all my heaid,” responded Squire Godwin, w»th a 
bow of imperturbable acquiescence. 


CHAPTEE Vn. 


AN OLD squire’s WOOING. 

I^QUIEE TEEVOE wanted a wife. He liad been long of 
setting about to supply the want ; he was the keener in 
his search when he began it. His latent determination to 
exercise his prerogative and marry like other men when- 
ever the fit took him, had been lately fanned into a flame by 
the supposed insolence of the heir-presumptive in counting 
prematurely on Squire Trevor, of Trevor Court, dying a 
bachelor. 

He had not thought of coming to St. Bevis’s to find the 
wife whom he had in his mind, for he had only learnt acci- 
dentally from Lady Bell herself that there was a marriageable 
young lady at St. Bevis’s. But stumbling, as he had chanced 
to stumble, on Lady Bell in her strait with an untoward 
guest at Brooklands, and having helped her, he was drawn 
by her rank, youth, and high-bred April charms, while he 
was not repelled by her presumed absence of fortune. 

Squire Trevor Efttually resolved — and with him to resolve 
was to perform — before he came up to Squire Godwin, and 
ascertained that the uncle would be consenting to the sale 
and sacrifice of the niece, that Squire Trevor’s wife should be 
Lady Bell Etheredge. 

When gentlemen like Squires Trevor and Godwin made 
up their minds to a match, a centuiy or more ago, they did 


48 


I,ADY BELL. 


not let grass grow on their intentions, or stand on ceremony 
and mince matters in bringing them to pass. 

Squire Grod win’s party, on its return that May night from 
Brooklands to St. Bevis’s, had the benefit of Squire Trevor’s 
company and that of his two servants. 

Mr. Trevor stayed ten days at St. Bevis’s, busy every 
morning during the first part of his stay, over accounts and 
papers with Mr. Godwin and a scrivener summoned for the 
purpose. Every afternoon the guest would saunter about, ride, 
course, or take a turn at bowls or skittles, unwieldy as he 
was, to stretch his limbs. Then he would take a dish of tea 
in Mrs. Die’s parlour, before he sat down to play cards with 
his host and the chaplain. 

Long before the ten days were at an end, it was an esta- 
blished fact, plain to the whole household, that Squire Trevor, 
who in these days of early marriages might have been Lady 
Bell Etheredge’s grandfather, was paying court to Lady BeU, 
and that he was only tarrying so long to have the connection 
settled. Nay, possibly, as the affairs of the family were in 
a desperate condition, the family might dispense with cere- 
mony. Mr. Trevor might propose to marry Lady Bell off 
hand, since he had no time to lose, and in order to relieve 
himself from the trouble of another journey of several days, 
when he was just getting in his hay crop. In that case Mr. 
Trevor might carry away Lady Bell with him, and leave her 
to fix upon and lay in her marriage suits, by his generosity, 
at Trevor Court. Such marriages were arranged by old 
cronies, fathers and guardians, and run up in a trice, without 
time being granted to make mouths at them. Young lads 
were sent for from college, girls were called from their 
tambour-frames, even from their dolls, and barely informed 
before they went into the presence of the parson, who was 
always at hand, that it was to decide summarily their fate 
they were thus brought on the scene of action. 


AN OLD SQUIRE'S- WOOING. 


49 


Lady Bell was tlie last person in the household at St. 
Bevis’s to learn what was in store for her. By the time she 
learned it, every preliminary had been agreed upon, the 
marriage contract was drawn out, the day all but named. 
Mr. Godwin had answered in the affirmative for his niece. 
Mrs. Die was perfectly indifferent. 

Mrs. Kitty was indifferent and malicious at the same time, 
because this poor upstart fiddle-faddle Lady Bell was to pass 
beyond Mrs. Kitty’s authority, quitting St. Bevis’s with a 
bride’s honours — such as they were, of which Mrs. Kitty’s 
Amazon queen, Mrs. Die, had been monstrously 'defrauded 
in her day. 

Even Mr. Sneyd and Mr. Greenwood looked on the mar- 
riage of Squire Trevor with Lady Bell, for the most part, 
favourably. What little rue the men felt was chiefly on 
their own account ; for her sake they were inclined, on due 
reflection, to welcome the match as not altogether out of 
course, and perhaps the best thing that could be hoped for 
Lady Bell. 

St. Bevis had not so fair a reputation, or such a promise 
of dowries for young ladies that it should draw wooers to 
Lady Bell. Of such wooers as would risk an association 
with Squire Godwin — a partnership in bets, an opposite book 
at Newmarket, or a night with him at cards — how many even 
of the Likeliest young fellows would present characters half 
so honest for husbands as that of Squire Trevor, and rent-rolls 
by many degrees so unencumbered as that of Trevor Court ? 

Finally, as a compensation and triumphant conclusion of 
the matter, these gentlemen — ^Lady Bell’s most considerate 
and indulgent friends— were guilty of proposing in their own 
minds, for the innocent girl’s comfort, that she would in all 
probability be left a young widow, — ^if she played her cards 
well, a rich young widow, — while she had still plenty of time 
and opportunity to please her taste in a second husband. 

8 


50 


LADY BELL. 


But Lady Bell was utterly incredulous, dumb -foun- 
dered, adverse, obdurate, only too vehemently so to begin 
with. 

Certainly she had often heard of such marriages as that 
which she was required to make. Ay, and she had heard 
them insisted on as a portionless girl’s simple solemn duty. 
While, on the other hand, she had known all marriages con- 
tracted rashly, impudently and in defiance of friends, charac- 
terized by no less an authority than Lady Lucie Penruddock 
as acts of gross impropriety and disgraceful insubordina- 
tion, which ought to compromise, and did compromise, a 
young woman fatally, and bring upon her punishment in 
proportion to the offence. 

Lady Bell was not able to persuade herself that her former 
idol. Lady Lucie, would have been on her side in this ques- 
tion. Lady Bell’s poor heart sunk like lead when she took 
Lady Lucie’s opinions into consideration. She dared not 
think of Lady Lucie during the tumult and rebellion of these 
May days at St. Bevis’s. 

But through all the girl’s elaborately artificial training, 
there was the young heart beating fast and warm with true 
instincts of what meetness was, of what sympathy meant, of 
what “ the great passion ” might prove. 

In the remote background of all Lady Bell’s girlishly brave 
proud schemes and undertakings to keep up her studies and 
gentlewoman’s .accomplishments, to improve herself, to spend 
lier time not amiss, even amidst the neglect and disorder of 
St. Bevis’s, there had hovered always the bright sweet hope 
of deliverance and a deliverer. 

In Lady Lucie’s set Lady Bell had not been without hear- 
ing of the young loves, consecrated by tragedy, of such a 
couple as Lord and Lady Tavistock. She had witnessed with 
her own eyes ‘‘ proper ” young pairs rejoicing in their real 
union, entering on life with every assurance of the closest 


AN OLD SQUIRE’S WOOING. 51 

friendsliip, the tenderest intimacy till death should them 
part. 

With her rapidly budding womanly instincts, with the 
fervour of her youthful recollections, Lady Bell absolutely 
revolted at being wedded to Mr. Trevor without her will 
being consulted. 

The deliverer whom she had dimly anticipated in a glamour 
and glory of romance was not a bull-necked, stout-bodied, 
short-legged squire of sixty and upwards, in a brown coat 
and scarlet vest. 

Lady Bell had owed to Squire Trevor the trifling boon of 
his having walked in the same direction as herself at Brook- 
lands. Oh 1 how she wished she had not been so perverse 
as to weary of the strutting and speechifying of Lord Tho- 
rold and Miss Babbage, if sitting still would have prevented 
this catastrophe ! 

But although Squire Trevor had saved Lady Bell by a 
word from an unscrupulous vagabond. Lady Bell had not 
taken to Squire Trevor from the first. She had been dis- 
agreeably struck by his touchy vanity, his rude dictation. 
She was indignant, disgusted, furiously angry when she 
learnt the proposal which he had made of himself within 
the first week of their acquaintance. 

But who was to help Lady Bell to assort her sentiments ? 

Instead of helping, every one was against her, and she 
was only a girl of fifteen, all the more likely to be overborne 
and to give in at last, because of two things, the unreason- 
able violence of her opposition, and her old-fashioned, facti- 
tious dignity and self-consciousness. 

Lady Bell’s first tactics were suflB.ciently transparent ; she 
made herself as disagreeable as possible to Squire Trevor. 
She never spoke to him voluntarily, and she only answered 
him in monosyllables. 

She retreated before his approach in the wilderness garden. 


52 


LADY BELL. 


or under tlie portico, showing him the last sweep of the tail 
of her train. She turned her shoulder to him, polite as she 
was, when she was forced to encounter him in Mrs. Die’s 
parlour, and when, to Lady Bell’s anger and dismay, the 
seat next her was significantly appropriated to Squire Trevor. 

She would not accept the early rose which he took from 
the how-pot and offered to her. 

She would not eat the bread and butter which he had, 
according to the homely gallantry of the generation, prepared 
specially for her consumption. 

She refused to sing to him. 

She ventured to cry aloud coldly, ‘‘ Oh ! Mr. Trevor, don’t 
make such a pother,” when he insisted on her being pro- 
moted to the card-table on the single occasion that Squire 
Godwin condescended to sit down for a family game, with 
Mrs. Die launching at her brother her madly malicious in- 
nuendoes. 


CHAPTEE Ym. 


MAEEIED IN A DAY. 

A LL was utterly in vain, as futile as Lady Bell’s dressing 
herself in her dowdiest clothes with her shabbiest, least 
‘‘setting” top-knots. If Lady Bell had only known in her 
youthful inexperience, there was something irresistibly 
piquant and provocative in her pouts and flouts, her sulks 
and deshabilles, to most men who had her in their power. 
The mere circumstance that her resistance, sincere to anguish 
as it was, in its openness, was weak as her age, would have 
been enough to all, save a generous man, in the conduct of 
such an attack, while to a man like Squire Trevor, any op- 
position, however feeble, served but as tinder to flame. 

Lady Bell’s next move was made in the utmost alarm on 
the arrival of a pair of valuable buckles set with diamonds, 
and a necklace with an emerald “bob,” for which Squire 
Trevor had sent a messenger expressly, and which were put 
by his direction, and with the connivance of others, in their 
cases with the lids open, on the little table before the mirror 
in Lady Bell’s closet. 

She ventured to seek her uncle when he was alone in 
the dining-room, and to tell him plainly, “Uncle Godwin, 
I am sorry to plague you, but I will not marry Squire 
Trevor.” 

For his answer, Mr. Godwin raised his eyebrows, and 


54 


LADY BELL. 


having nearly demolished Lady Bell by this simple operation, 
and its supercilious reception of her declaration of war, he 
proceeded further to annihilate her. 

“My Lady Bell, let me ask you, and forgive me for the 
indelicacy of the question, have you any means of subsistence 
except what I grant you?” 

“ No, sir,” answered Lady Bell, faint and low at the home- 
thrust ; and she was not able to tell her uncle, because in the 
annals of her rank she had not yet heard of such an enter- 
prise, and was ignorant how to set about it, that she would 
no longer be indebted to his bounty — she would go forth and 
earn her own bread, or perish without it, but she would not 
barter herself, for the sake of his making a better bargain in 
the sale of an unentailed fragment of his estate, or that he 
might be permanently rid of the burden of her mainte- 
nance. 

It would not have mattered although Lady Bell had done 
so, for Squire Godwin would only have mocked her merrily 
and reminded her, that as she was an old lady of not more 
than fifteen, he was her lawful guardian, and could raise 
the country in pursuit of her, could drag her into a public 
court in order to have her shamed, rebuked, and restored to 
his natural keeping. 

But all that Lady Bell said was, “No, sir,” with bitter 
humiliation. 

“Then I have the honour to tell you, madam,” Squire 
Godwin continued with the utmost calmness, “that I am a 
ruined man, and can no longer afford to support you. On 
that and every other account I hasten to accept so unexcep- 
tionable an establishment for you as a marriage with Squire 
Trevor will secure. Therefore, my niece, I beg to hear no 
more idle objections, unless you are prepared to show a 
better right to make them.” 

The Squire turned on his heel and drummed with his 


MARRIED IN A DAY. 


55 

fingers on the cliimney-piece. Lady Bell turned also, and 
ran tottering from the room. 

She felt her confidence ebbing away ; her sense of 
right and wrong grew hopelessly confused; her perplexity, 
despondency, and despair of escape became more than she 
could bear. At last an accident and Lady Bell’s own lively 
impulse put an end to the struggle. 

One of the executions of which Mrs. Die had spoken to 
Lady Bell on her first day at St. Bevis’s, was put into the 
house. Bailiffs with writs turning up unexpectedly one 
morning, and not doing their spiriting gently, did not com- 
pose Lady Bell’s shaken nerves, though it must be owned 
that Mr. Godwin and Mrs. Die took the visitation with great 
equanimity, and did not even disturb themselves on account 
of the presence of Mr. Trevor, but left it to his swagger to 
be exceedingly aggrieved by the disagreeable interruption 
to his wooing. 

Within twelve hours the rough men walking about the 
house at their pleasure, in muddy shoes, with hats on their 
heads, and smelling of beer and gin, stripped from St. Bevis’s, 
as bailiffs had done more than once already, every article 
that would lift. They even put profane hands on some of 
Lady Bell’s fragile performances of fan-liaiidles and card- 
boxes. The men included in their sweep, as they had not 
included on former occasions, the very wearing apparel of 
the heads of the family. 

Furniture and clothing wore piled and stuffed into wag- 
gons brought round for the purpose under the portico, to be 
driven off and have their contents sold in their market-place 
of Cleveburgh. 

Squire Godwin, who was not liable to personal arrest 
because of the seat in Parliament which he, his father, and 
grandfather had held since the Long Parliament and the 
Charleses, and Mrs. Die, were left like one of Hogarth’s 


56 


LADY BELL. 


couples — only tMs couple were used to the extremity, and it 
did not discompose them — sitting desolate among a few heir- 
looms of old pictures, plate, and jewels. 

The brother and sister and their household were without 
changes of clothes, without beds to lie down upon, without 
vessels out of which to eat such victuals as they could 
procure ; while Mrs. Kitty, Mr. Sneyd, and Mr. Grreenwood, 
were hurrying here and there, on foot and on horseback, 
exerting themselves frantically to collect fresh necessaries. 

Squire Trevor pulled out a bundle of bank-notes from his 
pocket-book, and put them uncounted into Mrs. Kitty^s 
hand. 

Lady Bell saw the deed from the window-recess in which 
she was standing, shivering with agitation. She came out 
and instantly acted on it. 

“ Squire Trevor,” she declared, ‘‘I for one cannot consent 
that my friends and I shall live on your charity, while I will 
not marry you. I will marry you, sir, now, when you 
please.” 

He turned briskly. “ So, you’ve come to your senses, my 
lady,” he remarked drily; ‘‘I am glad to hear it ;” and he 
took her at her word. 

Need one say that she hated him the more for so taking 
her, and that she repented of her word the moment it was 
spolien ? 

Lady Bell was married within a few days, as soon as 
Mrs. Entty could repair in a decent manner, by Mr. Trevor’s 
bounty, the destruction at St. Bevis’s. 

On the morning of her marriage-day Lady BeU stood, for 
the last time, at the parlour window, looking out on the pro- 
spect which had claimed her on her arrival, and had since 
become familiar and almost home-like. 

It was a soft summer rain — so soft that the rooks were 
cawing and the blackbirds singing through the wet, as if 


MARRIED IN A DAY. 


57 


they knew how tlie corn was sprouting, and the fruit germs, 
from which the blossoms were falling, were setting in tht 
genial, timely moisture. 

The very fragment of the great house, which one man had 
begun, but no man would finish, because beams and cope- 
stones had been launched away on horses’ heels, and 
rattled down with throws of the dice — seemed as if it were 
wept upon by the patient sky’s purifying tears. 

Lady Bell was no longer wrathful and wounded to the 
quick in her self-respect, her maidenly pride, and her noble 
birth. She was sick and sad, wishing that she could die in 
her youth, with this day, and that the rain might be falling 
on her grave. 

“So, you are going from this evil house. Lady Bell, 
before its fate fall upon you,” said Mrs. Die. 

It was the gentlest speech she had ever made to her niece, 
but it was spoken not so much in remorse, or in atonement, 
or in faint congratulation, as in a certain dreary sense that a 
presence, strange for many a day, which she had not prized 
while she had it, that had come and abode for a season at St. 
Bevis’s, was going from it for ever. It was the presence of 
youth, simplicity, hope, a heart ungnawed as yet with pas- 
sion, which . might have made the vacant, haunted place less 
doleful. 

Mrs. Kitty hastened to interpose with a parting sneer. 
‘■'Sure Lady Bell will never remember such unfortunate, 
stay-at-home folks as we are at St. Bevis’s, when she is a 
young married madam, gadding abroad with her gay bride- 
groom.” 

These were the gibes which Lady Bell heard, instead of 
the flattering assurances and fond prognostications which are 
wont to wait on brides. 

She was married in her hat and habit, as she had come to 
St. Bevis’s, because there was to be no marriage feast, inad- 
3 * 


58 


LADY BELL. 


missible in the circumstances, and slie bad to start with 
Squire Trevor immediately after the ceremony. 

The special licence had been procured, and Mr. Greenwood 
had only to don his cassock, to marry Lady Bell in Mrs. Die’s 
parlour. 

It was the disreputable merry-andrew and scapegrace of a 
chaplain who held her by the hand for a moment at parting, 
and said seriously and from his heart, ‘‘ May every happiness 
and prosperity attend you. Lady Bell.” 

“Thank you, sir,” she answered him quietly and gravely, 

‘ ‘ and I have to thank you also for all the kindness which 
you have shown me since I came here, and to ask you to 
forgive me if I have ever offended you. Will you say the 
same from me to Sneyd, in case I should not get it said to 
him ? ” 

She spoke it so prettily, and so like some poor young Lady 
Jane Grey on her way to the block, as Mr. Greenwood con- 
fided to his crony Sneyd afterwards, that the tears started to 
his eyes, and he was forced to retire and not see her ride 
away, because he could not have stood it without blubbering ; 
and what would the squire have said to such an exhibition ? 


CHAPTEE IX. 


LADY BELL TKEVOR. 

^^CCOEDINGf- to tlie fashion of the time, though it was 
only two or three days’ journey to Trevor Court, Squire 
Trevor and his young wife made it a progress from one 
friend’s house to another, where the Squire in person an- 
nounced his marriage, presented his bride, was roasted and 
toasted, and regaled with the first instalment of his wedding 
rejoicings by the good-will of his neighbours. 

The practice was so far lucky in Lady Bell’s case, it gave 
her no time to reflect on what had happened in all its im- 
portance, so that the re-action which had already set in after 
the overstrained resignation and meekness of her last 
moments at St. Bevis’s, was only a silent rebellion. 

Lady Bell, even at flfteen, had too much spirit and sense 
to feel inclined to exhibit to strangers her wrongs and 
misery, and the extent of the sacriflce which she had just 
celebrated. She did not dissolve in floods of tears — she con- 
trolled herself, and was only thought very pale (but she was 
a pale, dark-eyed beauty at any time), proud, and shy, — a 
grand, but not very attractive-, young madam for old Squire 
Trevor. 

Nevertheless, it was in a state of chronic rebellion that 
Lady Bell reached Trevor Court. What good was the rebel- 
lion to do then ? She never asked herself. Eifteen does not 


6o 


LADY BELL. 


often ask suck questions wken it but writkes under a sense 
of betrayal and wretckedness. 

Trevor Court was not like St. Bevis’s. It was a fine, well 
preserved old place, witk noble stacks of warm red-brick 
chimneys, seen first from amidst coeval dark green yews on a 
broad green terrace. 

It bad a stone-seated porch and an oak-lined chimney 
corner, with . great delf platters hanging by strings on each 
side of the richly-carved wood chimney-piece. 

It had a best parlour answering to a drawing-room, where 
the spindle-legged chairs were made of cane, the hangings 
and chair covers were lemon colour, and there were Indian 
ornaments and egg-shell china — altogether so cold, fantastic, 
and fragile in its details, that nobody would have dreamt of 
occupying it, except for the reception of company. 

There were blue, red, and green bedrooms, each with its 
enormous bed like a coloured hearse, its square of Persian 
carpet in the middle of the fioor, and its ebony escritoire,. 
Everything was in keeping and in order, and was, next to his 
sovereign self, the pride of Squire Trevor’s heart and the 
delight of his eyes. 

“Look up, and look out, here is my place, my lady;” so 
Squire Trevor introduced Trevor Court, its venerable beauties 
fresh with the perennial freshness of early summer, to Lady 
BeU. 

“Is this Trevor Court?” sighed Lady Bell, scarcely stir- 
ring herself in her corner of the chariot. 

It was with intense mortification, almost exceeding that 
with which he had heard her first address him as a man who 
might be her father, and afterwards repel with disgust his 
clumsy blandishments, that Mr. Trevor discovered Trevor 
Court was lost on Lady Bell. 

She saw in it only a better sort of prison-house. She was 
not grateful for the change from the wreck at St. Bevis’s. 


LADY BELL TREVOR. 


6l 


At St. Bevis’s there had still been something like freedom 
and hope. Trevor Court signified slavery and despair. 

Lady Bell was not nearly old enough, or mercenary 
enough, to weigh with appreciation the substantial evidences 
of respectability and comfort. Her burdened heart and soul 
were not free to admit a sense of beauty. 

Lady Bell looked round her with lack-lustre eyes. No 
comment of satisfaction or word of praise dropped from her 
tightly-locked lips. 

“ Welcome, your honour ! Welcome, madam, and long 
life and prosperity ! Many happy returns of the day ! 
Hoorah! hoorah!” broke the stiff, oppressive silence. The 
greeting burst in set form, and simultaneously, from the 
pliant dependants and consequential old servants in quilted 
gowns like Mrs. Kitty’s, in worsted stockings, and worsted 
lace setting off their livery, in gardeners’ green aprons and 
countrymen’s round hats, which were at that moment waved 
lustily in the air. 

The worst was to come ; for resentment and anguish at 
fifteen are very Kable to merge into petulance, alternating 
with heaviness. Lady Bell received the demonstration 
haughtily and cavalierly. She was the mistress of these 
folks, in spite of herself, and against her will. Their making 
merry provoked her when she did not desire their service. 

It had been right that she should put the best face upon 
matters while she was in other people’s houses ; but since 
she had come home, if home meant anything, and as Squire 
Trevor’s marriage had been too unpremeditated to admit of 
the assistance of strangers in the “home-coming,” she need 
make no farther pretence. 

She declined to drink her own health, not to say Squire 
Trevor’s, in the ale which had been broached, and the claret 
which had been drawn. She was forced to pledge her 
household in return ; but she only touched the flagon with 


62 


LADY BELL. 


her lips. She was compelled, too, to take the Squire’s arm, 
and walk, accommodating her steps to his pursy gait ; but she 
walked like a naughty child, with as few smiles and curtseys 
as she could bestow between the rows of retainers. She 
clutched her skirt and riding-gloves, to prevent any willing 
hand freeing her from the encumbrances. 

There was something pathetic as well as ludicrous in the 
forlornness of the unmagnanimous behaviour that showed 
both singleness of heart and extreme youthful folly in 
the friendless girl; but it incensed Squire Trevor beyond 
measure. 

Without the indiscretion, he might have felt inclined, as 
he had carried his point and gained his end, to be in good 
humour with his bride and the rest of the world. 

True, he had married on a mere impulse, and in a spirit of 
contradiction.- His fancy for Lady Bell, who was showing 
herself intractable and exasperating, hardly deserved the 
name even of passion. The accidents of her situation, and 
of the opportune manner in which she had crossed his path, 
together with her rank, had as much to do with his fancy as 
any gust of passion, though the girl, in her right mind, was 
attractive enough. He was but slightly acquainted with her. 
He had no familiarity with girls, not much with women of 
more mature age. He would, under any circumstances, have 
been shy and awkward, would not have known what to do 
with Lady Bell after he had got her, and would soon have 
found her in his way, even if she had cop.ducted herseK with 
amazing self-restraint and tact. 

But he might not have betrayed speedy symptoms of 
Jioroseness and violence had he not felt deeply injured. 

As it was, Lady Bell, who had been used, in her experience 
of mankind as masters, simply to Squire Godwin’s supercili- 
ous scorn, had cause within her very first day at Trevor 
Court to dread Squire Trevor’s awfully furious temper. She 


LADY BELL TREVOR. 


63 


had married the worst-conditioned John Trot in Gloucester- 
shire, and she had set his teeth on edge in crossing his 
threshold. 

She saw him fretting and fidgeting, — 

“Lazy tykes, not to have finished with the hay crop. 
Who set them to hoist flags and busk arches ? I’ll let them 
know I’ll marry every day in the year, without freeing them 
from their tasks. Zounds ! one of the young horses broke 
her neck in the quarry. — I’U break more necks before I’ve 
done, the fiends take them ! ” 

She witnessed the storm gathering and rising, while he 
stamped here and clattered there, till it reached a roar, 
which, for shame’s sake, was not directed against her as yet, 
but which sullenly took her into the general offence. 

The entire household cowered in the middle of their holi- 
day, keeping before the untimely blast. Lady Bell cowered 
too, secretly. 

From that mom(int’s height of startled dismay she was in 
fear of her life whenever the Squire rampaged, swore, and 
(especially after his dinner and bottle of port) flung about 
tlie furniture, dashed down his pipe, kicked the very live 
coals from the grate over the room, and drove the dogs, witli 
their tails between their heels, flying from the house. 

But, notwitlistanding, the girl was not tamed or cured of 
her sauciness ; her spirit might be broken in time, but it was 
not broken at once, though it had recoiled before Squire 
Godwin’s irony. There was that in her which rose naturally 
against the physical terror of brute force, though it might 
overwhelm her ultimately. 

Lady Bell kept as far as she could out of sight and sound 
of the Squire’s “rages;” but when they were over, leaving 
iiini in a condition of stupid exhaustion and dogged affront, 
she went her own way again, as if the rages had never been. 
Her way was very much the same way that she had pursued 


64 


LADY BELL. 


at St. Bevis’s, of carrying on always more listlessly lier slender 
studies, and of working out idly lier manifold minute devices. 

“ Hadn’t you better take a sensible piece of work into your 
bands in place of reading fools’ verses and French books — 
no good comes from France — or wasting your time with 
trumpery drawing and flowering ? ” Thus Mr. Trevor had 
sought to lay the ungentle yoke on her in the first lustre of 
the honeymoon. ‘‘I thought all proper hr ought-up young 
women, whether they were Lady Bells or not, without a 
penny to bring to their husbands ” — ^he illustrated the posi- 
tion candidly — “were taught to keep accounts, and help to 
make their own clothes, like my cousin at the parsonage,, 
even if they could not raise paste and feed poultry.” 

“Let me tell you, sir,” retorted Lady Bell with consider- 
able courage, “ that, though I am Lady Bell who never pre- 
tended to bring a penny to a husband — as it is not my fault 
that I have one — I can keep accounts, and help to make my 
clothes when it is needful. But I choose to have other occu- 
pations when those that you have been so good as to point 
out to me, fad me. I suppose you do not wish me to make 
accounts, that I may add them up, or to cut out and stitch 
together more clothes than I can wear ? As for raising 
paste, I confess I have seen that left to the cook ; and for 
poultry — we had only sparrows in town.” 

“A fig for town — a sink of corruption,” protested Mr. 
Trevor, reddening like a turkey-cock at the insulting idea 
that town could be held superior to Trevor Court. “ I’m of 
the mind of Lord Mulcaster, who had it put into the articles 
of his marriage contract, that my lady was neither to go to 
town, nor to wear diamonds.” 

‘ ‘ I did not know that the question was of going to town 
or wearing diamonds,” cried Lady Bell with a grimace. “ I 
thought you were speaking of raising paste and feeding 
poultry.” 


LADY BELL TREVOR. 


^5 


“Can’t you bide in your own bouse, Bell,” the Squire 
would bully his wife another time, because he himself seldom 
indulged in exercise beyond stumping to his ojQBiCes, riding 
round a field or two on his cob, and playing a game of bowls 
or skittles with his servants. He was disturbed by the young 
girl’s girKsh restlessness. He hated to have her doing what 
he did not care to do — without him too. 

“No, I can’t, Mr. Trevor. I must have breath and motion, 
if I can have nothing else,” Lady Bell said plainly. 

Lady Bell remained a stranger in her husband’s house, in 
the plenty and snugness of Trevor Court, as in the barren- 
ness and exposure of St. Bevis’s. She was in greater isola- 
tion than ever ; for there was no Mr. Greenwood, and no 
Sneyd — ^friendly scamps — at Trevor Court. 

In place of attaching any of her husband’s servants. Lady 
Bell had contrived to repel them from the beginning ; for 
was not their idol, their own born and bred Squire, the 
reflection but slightly refined of their doltish and dour 
natures ? And did not the young madam start by com- 
mitting sacrilege against the idol, who, if you .spoke him 
fair, and took a few fierce words — it might be blows — was 
not so bad an idol as times went. 

Squire Trevor had his good points, which his own people 
knew best. He was ready to make up, by a sort of crabbed 
justice, when the passion was off him, for his surliness of 
manners. He could take his bottle like the rest of the 
world, and even sit and soak himself into blind madness 
when he was brooding on any real or fancied wrong. But 
he did not squander his means on vain show or riotous Hving. 
He did not gamble away his paternal acres, and consign his 
dependants to wreck and ruin with himself, like many of his 
generation. 

Squire Trevor was considered somewhat of a model of 
squirearchical excellence down at Trevor Court, and Lady 

F 


66 


LADY BELL. 


Bell by contrast a very naughty young lady indeed, a dis- 
contented, good-for-nothing Lon’ oner, who took it upon her 
to he sullen or peevish, and did not at once set herself to 
please her' husband by implicit obedience, and by all wifely 
arts as well as wifely virtues. 

Trevor Court was not out of count in its neighbourhood, 
but, except in doing his duty to society by keeping up 
rounds of visits on special occasions, Mr. Trevor did not care 
for going into or receiving company. He liked to know 
himself monarch of all he surveyed, and to be deferred to in 
like manner — heights of regard which he could hardly attain 
off his own land. 

Above all, Mr. Trevor objected to presenting an open door 
to the country, or to availing himself of other open doors, so 
soon as he had discovered that Lady Bell, after long absti- 
nence from the society of young people like herself, could, 
when restored to it, abate her exclusiveness, and even relax 
into faint dimpling smiles. “ByGreorge!” he swore, ‘‘if 
she can’t smile on me and my honest household, she shan’t 
on a parcel of idle young rakes and impudent hussies in 
their questionable surroundings.” 

It was not unlikely that Squire Trevor had some reason in 
his decision. The standard of morals was low everywhere a 
century ago. There were many instances then of country 
houses in remote districts, as there are to-day of agricultural 
cottages in similar circumstances, which were more woefully 
corrupt than the worst town houses. 

But Lady Bell was incapable of comprehending such justi- 
fication. She regarded the deprivation enforced on her as an 
additional injury and insult. And she was determined that 
if Mr. Trevor kept her a prisoner at Trevor Court, he should 
look on her face as that of a prisoner directed to her jailer. 


CHAPTEE X. 


THE SUNDONS AND THE WALSHES. 

/^HUECH was nearly the only place where Lady Bell saw 
the world, if seeing the world it could he called, when 
she was shut securely into a high moth-eaten brown pew, 
with Squire Trevor seated by her side, and his servants ranged 
in rows behind her. However, Lady Bell’s wandering eyes 
contrived to peep over the board, to seek out and rest on a 
lady and gentleman in the only other pew which was on an 
equality with Squire Trevor’s, in the little parish church. 

The lady was only a few years older than Lady Bell, who 
thought the stranger very handsome. She had one of those 
striking profiles which readily catch the eye. Her face was 
long and oval, with clearly cut, distinguished nose and chin, 
the under part of the face projecting very slightly. The fine 
face belonged to a fine figure. The white cardinal cape and 
little chip hat and plume of feathers had more of an air of 
fashion than Lady Bell had noticed in such articles since her 
happy days with the best society at Lady Lucie Penrud- 
dock’s. 

The lady’s companion was young like herself, as Lady Bell 
remarked wistfully, though after the fashion of most of the 
young Englishmen of rank whom she had seen, his face 
lacked the freshness of youth. StiU it was a pleasant, pre- 
possessing face in its suspicion of haggardness and exhaustion, 


68 


LADY BELL. 


and was in conjunction with a good person and the easy 
manner of a cultivated nmn of the world. 

The couple used the same Prayer-Book, — that is, he look 'd 
on hers when he used a book at all. She admonished him 
with a reproachful smile and shake of the head, when he 
yawned and closed his eyes during the service. He led her 
out of church when the congregation were dismissed, and 
handing her into a landau, drove off talking and laughing 
with her. They were a very pretty couple, surely near and 
intimate relations, and they quite took Lady Bell’s fancy. 

“Who are the handsome lady and gentleman?” she 
inquired on the first opportunity of the vicar’s wife. 

■ “I am sure I cannot tell,” answered the lady indifferently ; 
“I desire to keep my eye's better employed than in staring 
round at the skin-deep beauty or fine feathers of my fellow- 
worms. I daresay you mean young Sundon, of Chevely, who 
has taken a wife like the rest of us, and brought her down on 
a visit to these parts. They say he has been a wild liver, 
and that the friends of madam, who was a great fortune, 
opposed the marriage. If so, they did not need to wish her 
iU, in order to keep her from thriving.” 

“ She looks more like thriving than I who obeyed my 
friends,” thought Lady Bell. 

“Madam Sundon will want all. her wits,” continued the 
speaker, “ to make her man pick up, that he may not squander 
what is left of his means and her fortune. But I neither 
know nor care, for it is long since I have shaken hands with 
the world and its gossip.” 

“Young Sundon, of Chevely,” echoed Squire Trevor 
irritably, “the spark who stood up against his betters at 
Peasmarsh ? I forbid you. Lady Bell, to have a word to say 
to any one of the pack.” 

“Who speaks of having a word to say?” — she resented 
the prohibition nevertheless ; “ mayn’t a cat look at a king ?” 


smiled in a friendly way, and nooded neiglibour fasliion. 








THE SUNDONS AND THE WALSHES., 69 

And Lady Bell did take a poor consolation in looking her fill 
at the comely, liglit-liearted young couple. In return the 
couple looked hard at Lady Bell, and, as she convinced her- 
self with a swelling heart, repressed a smile at her associa- 
tions, and pitied her. 

At last, meeting the Sundons, when she had broken away 
from Mr. Trevor, and was riding with the vicar’s daughter or 
with a servant, the beautiful, assured-looking lady made an 
advance to Lady Bell. Mrs. Sundon’s was one of those faces 
which are full of character and latent strength. This was 
more true with regard to her face than to that of her bland 
but languid companion. Therefore she took the initiative 
smiled in a friendly way, and nodded neighbour fashion, 
while Mr. Sundon lifted his hat, and held it till the parties 
had passed each other. 

As for Lady Bell, she smiled, flushed, and nodded slightly 
in return, with a girl’s shy, inconsiderate triumph in evading 
the Squire’s tyrannical mandate, for smiling and nodding 
were not speaking to the Sundons — ^husband and wife. 

There was one person close to Lady Bell who was ready to. 
give her a difi'erent version of a wife’s duty to a husband than 
a flighty and very human subterfuge implied. That person 
had been regularly commissioned to lecture Lady Bell and 
keep an eye on her. 

In introducing Lady Bell to his cousin, the vicar’s wife, the 
Squire had said, half in homely jocoseness, which might have 
been very well had there been a good understanding between 
the iU-matched couple, half in tart earnest, ‘‘I give my wife 
into your charge, Ann ; you’ll look after her, and see that 
she minds her duty, and does not get into scrapes.” 

“I accept the charge, cousin,” responded Mrs. Walsh 
promptly and with the utmost gravity ; ‘M’ll do my best for 
the young lady,” and she did not even add, “if she’ll allow 
me while poor, touchy, aristocratic Lady Bell, drew up her 


70 


LADY BELL. 


dainty figure and tossed her head in vain at the bargain 
made, like her marriage itself, will-he nill-he. 

Mrs. Walsh was the wife of a hard-working clergyman, 
who left to her a share of his public duties and the entire 
management of his private concerns, including the inter- 
course between the parsonage and the mansion of the Squire, 
Mrs. Walsh’s cousin. When Mr. Walsh was not in his 
church or school, he was in his study ; and when he was 
neither in church, school, nor study, he was reading or 
praying by some cottage bedside. 

Mrs. Walsh in her own person laboured from morning till 
night, not only without complaint, but with a high sense of 
the privilege and dignity of her vocation. She brought up a 
large family honourably on a marvellously small income. 
She strengthened her husband’s hands in other respects by 
emjoioying every spare moment in teaching the ignorant, 
reclaiming the bad, nursing the sick. 

Mrs. Walsh had received a solid masculine education, 
classical, mathematical, theological, which enabled her to act 
as tutor to her sons and assistant to her husband in their 
studies. She despised all mere shallow, graceful, feminine 
accomplishments, and condemned them as waste of time. In 
like manner she had both a natural and acquired antipathy 
to fine ladies. She was well matched, and in cordial sym- 
pathy with her husband, therefore she magnified the marriage 
tie and enforced it in the highest measure on all less happy 
wives, and was amazed to find that they could dream of 
setting it at naught, in all its length and breadth. 

Mrs. Walsh wore a steeple-crowned hat and cloth spencer 
when she went abroad in all weathers and on all occasions. 
Within doors she wore an equally high-crowned cap and 
voluminous friUs, which were in correct keeping with her 
massive, aggressive face and towering, portly figure. Hers 
was a more formidable presence than that of a beadle or 


THE SUNDONS AND THE WALSHES. 


71 


bailiff to all weak and froward recusants who were not utter 
reprobates, in the middle of the sluggishness and stolid 
stupidity of the country parish. 

Mrs. Walsh was an additional and a tremendous thorn in 
Lady Bell’s delicate flesh, in strict fulfilment of what the 
parson’s wife considered her pledge to the Squire. 

Mrs. Walsh had a little leisure at this time. The chronic 
ague and the frequent putrid fever were not so widely spread 
and virulent as usual, thanks, as Mrs. Walsh judged rightly, 
to the Lord’s blessing (but whether the exemption was to 
be attributed farther to her sovereign sage and ground ivy- 
tea, is a debatable question). The recent visit of a recruiting 
sergeant had enticed within the reach of the iron horse and 
the cat o’ nine tails some of the more troublesome young 
ne’er-do-wells within the bounds. 

Mrs. Walsh set herself to spend her holiday in taking Lady 
Bell Trevor to task. Mrs. Walsh would impress on Lady 
Bell a new code of morals, bring her to a better frame of 
mind, render her a useful member of society, and a reformed 
young woman and wife. In what Mrs. Walsh called dealing 
faithfully with Lady Bell, the reformer did not hesitate at 
the plainest speaking, the most direct home thrusts. 

To do Mrs. Walsh justice, she dealt as faithfully with her 
cousin, the Squire, when her mission lay in that direction ; 
she called him roundly a profane swearer, a man of strife, a 
vain and puffed-up man of the world, and coolly stood her 
ground in the teeth of his wrath, bidding him, “Turn me out 
of your doors, cousin; I don’t mind; — I shall suffer in a good 
cause, but it will be the worse for you, I promise you.” 

The Squire did not turn her and her “ overbearing conceit 
and Methodist cant” out of doors, though he threatened it 
many a time, and it was certain that she browbeat his vio- 
lence in bearding it, and had more influence over him than 
most people. 


72 


LADY BELL. 


The excellent woman rather relished the tug of war, and 
the coming off victoriously from the autocratic kinsman Out 
of whose way she was careful to keep her husband, and to 
whom the rest of the parish cringed subserviently. 

It was not of the smallest use for Lady Bell to be haughty, 
to be flippant, to try every effort to escape from her perse- 
cutor. Mrs. Walsh only found fresh food for her homilies 
in the girl’s struggles. 

“ I must tell you. Lady Bell, it is very senseless and unbe- 
coming of you to take a huff at good advice ; ” and Mrs. Walsh 
proceeded to state her views and issue her censures deliberately 
and elaborately : “ It is not the work of a rational creature 
to thread beads and flourish on catgut. If Squire Trevor has 
the gout, it is not your part to leave him alone the .whole 
morning while you make a play of gathering rose-leaves. It 
would set you better to be gaining a knowledge of simples, 
so that you might distil a remedy for his pain. But I, or 
any one with open eyes, can see how little you mind him — 
your own husband, who is one flesh and blood with you, if 
so be you can please and divert yourself. I should be sorry 
to see my Sally, who is half a year younger than you, and 
has no goodman of her own to study and serve, as yet, of such 
a light and heedless turn of mind.” 

“ You may give your advice, ma’am, when I ask for it,” 
panted Lady Bell. 

“I shall not wait for such an opening — folk would have to 
wait Tong enough, if they stayed tilL they were bidden call 
in question wrong-doing.” Mrs. Walsh rose and took to 
walking up and down the room, Hke a peripatetic philo- 
sopher, delivering his dogmas. 

What call have you — what title have you to speak so to 
me, Mrs. Walsh ?” insisted Lady Bell, her cheeks a-blaze. 

“ I have the call of my conscience and the title of one who, 
by Q-od’s blessing, at least knows right from wrong, however 


THE SUNDONS AND THE WALSHES. 


73 


imperfectly I may put it in practice,” announced Mrs, Walsh 
without a moment’s hesitation, standing still and looking 
down from her vantage on the culprit. 

‘‘If I were not an unhappy young creature,” Lady Bell 
broke down at last, and wrung her hands in futile youthful 
pain and rage, “if Mr. Trevor, cruel old tyrant as he is, were 
even like other husbands ” 

“Have a care. Lady Bell, have a care,” interrupted Mrs. 
Walsh, in extreme disdain and disgust, “ if you are so far 
left to yourself as openly to speak evil of the man whom you 
have vowed; — ay, madam, vowed solemnly, so that you are a 
forsworn and lost woman if you break your vow — ^to honour 
and obey, then I shall not know what fine lady depravity we 
may look for next, or in what strict keeping, for your own 
unhappy sake, we ought to hold you.” 

“You may heap insult on insult; you may report what 
I have said to your cousin, Mrs. Walsh.” Lady Bell gave 
her foe free leave, as she nervously twirled the lace of her 
bodice, “that will be fair nnd kind, like the rest of your 
conduct.” 

“ Indeed, my lady, I shall not stick to report this, or what- 
ever I think necessary, to my cousin Trevor, at any time.” 
Mrs. Walsh accepted the permission undauntedly. “ Worldly 
honour and I have shaken hands long ago. To do my duty 
to Grod and my neighbour, is all my care.” 

But Mrs. Walsh did not on this or any other occasion 
appeal to Squire Trevor. She was too stout-hearted a woman 
to call in, without reluctance, foreign aid in her battles. She 
might have shaken hands with worldly honour, but she had 
an honour of her own — she contented herself with confiding 
to her own husband that she “mistrusted ” that young Lady 
Bell Trevor was either clean crazy, or on the high road to 
ruin. 

Perhaps it came to the same thing in the end, for, acting 
4 


74 


LADY BELL. 


on her convictions, Mrs. Walsh took it upon herself, in what 
she believed the interest of religion, virtue, and family re- 
gard, to watch and guard the unfortunate young woman, and 
in this Mrs. Walsh was warmly abetted by Squire Trevor, 
who was growing every day more j ealous of and carping to 
his wife. 

When Mrs. Walsh could not discharge her office in person, 
she did it in deputy by her eldest daughter. Young Sally 
Walsh, brought up under the hardest discipline, in her 
homespun linen and woollen, and barn-door buxomness, 
had been considerably dazzled to begin with, by the elegant 
apparition of Lady Bell, but having been smartly chidden by 
her mother for her short-sighted worldliness, she fell straight- 
way into the opposite error. 

Sally was not only forward and intrusive in her bearing 
towards Lady Bell, whom Sally’s mother had in such small 
esteem, but, from learning to entertain a poor opinion of the 
strange, foolish young fine lady, and her distempered state 
of mind, Sally proceeded, Avithout meaning much harm — on 
the whole meaning good, to despise Lady Bell and to trample 
upon her figuratively. 

Lady Bell had spirit to keep her own ground and resist 
being trampled on, but it was a proud delicate spirit, and 
was at a discount in- a contest with ruder, stronger spirits. 

“I’ll go up to the Court and sit with Lady Bell,” Sally 
Walsh would propose, dangling her hat by its ribands, and 
squaring the mottled elbows which her mits left exposed. 
“I don’t mind though she is as mum as a mouse and as glum 
as an owl. I’ll keep her from going melancholy mad;” and 
then the young girl would say, not for a moment concealing 
that she looked for some benefit to herseK in the benefit con- 
ferred on another, “ Lady Bell may let me take the shape of 
a habit shirt,” or “ the peaches are prime ripe in the Court 
gardens.” 


THE SUNDONS AND THE WALSHES. 


75 


Mrs. Walsh bade her daughter not hanker after the follies 
of dress, or the flesh-pots of Egypt, hut she did not think the 
hankering in this case very unnatural or unreasonable. 

“What do you think I found my lady doing?” Sally 
would report faithfully to her mother on her return ; “ Carv- 
ing cherry-stones ! I told her she would blind herself ; but, 
of course, she whittled away. The Squire’s list shoes were 
worn out, and I said I should make him a new pair, and he 
said, there was a wench of some use in the world ! ” 

“ Then be thankful, child, and don’t learn bragging from 
poor silly Lady Bell.” 

“ She didn’t know how to make list shoes, mother, but she 
looked at me after I had the list from Tofts ; she is quick. 
Lady Bell, for, as dandilly as she is, she picked up the 
making in no time. There,” she said, “you can hear her, 
mother, in her low mincing tones, ‘ now I can show Tofts 
how to supply Mr. Trevor with list shoes in future, you 
need not trouble to make any more. Miss Walsh;’ these were 
all the thanks I had.” 

“You taught the flne lady one useful lesson,” Mrs. Walsh 
encouraged her daughter. 

But though Lady Bell might try, and might sometimes 
succeed in asserting her supremacy and in distancing her foes, 
she could not flght with their weapons. When they invaded 
her privacy, invited themselves to be her companions, spied 
upon her, if that could be called spying which was open and 
bold, and all to do her good, they drove her nearly frantic. 


CHAPTEE XI. 


THE ELECTION AT PEASMAHSH. 

pi OADED as Lady Bell was, and with the summer sunshine 
on the wane, and the autumn gloom approaching, she 
was ready to welcome any change. She heard with satisfac- 
tion, one afternoon, a surly announcement from her husband 
that she was to accompany him to Peasmarsh, and that she 
had better make preparations for remaining several weeks in 
the. county town. 

Lady Bell took such slight notice of what was passing 
around her, and had so little knowledge of the world, that 
she did not connect the announcement with the circumstance 
that there had been a great deal of whipping and spurring 
of gentlemen lately to Trevor Court, where they were shut 
up with the Squire of a morning, or drinking with him after 
dinner. They were visitors to whom Lady Bell was indif- 
ferent, in addition to the Squire’s not caring for her having 
intercourse with them. 

Lady Bell had no idea what the family were going into 
Peasmarsh for, till Sally Walsh insulted her by the incredu- 
lous demand — 

“You don’t mean to say. Lady Bell, that you don’t know 
the elections are coming on, and that the Squire is to stand 
as member? My ears, what do you hear? Eather and 
mother and 1, knew this a fortnight ago.” 


THE ELECTION AT PEASMARSH 


77 


The Squire, who doted on Trevor Court and hated town, 
who was for his day a lukewarm politician — seeing that 
politics concerned more men than Dick Trevor, and more 
places than Trevor Court — ^what should he do in Parliament ? 
But Lady Bell hardly stopped to ask, and to put two and two 
together, to argue that there must he an opponent in the 
field, for the Squire, like a mad hull, would run blindly at 
an opponent. 

Here was deliverance, here was a lightening of her load. 
With the giddiness by no means rooted out of her, and with- 
out considering that she had made the same reflection not 
greatly to her profit once before now, she reflected, it is an 
ill wind which blows nobody good. 

To escape from Trevor Court, to leave the Walshes behind 
her, even for a season, to have a chance of being restored to 
her beloved town and the countenance of her old friends, for 
such a gain it was almost worth while to have married Squire 
Trevor. 

The occasion of Lady Bell’s leaving was the first time that 
she had contemplated her world with complacence since she 
came to Trevor Court. Sitting in the travelling chariot by 
her husband’s side. Lady Bell was faintly conscious that the 
fine old place, which he leant out to regard so fondly, de- 
served the love and honour which had not been hers to give. 
The clustering stacks of chimneys, with their hospitable 
spirals of blue smoke, the yew terrace, with its deep shade 
and broad light, were very fair to see. 

Lady Bell actually looked round her with interest on the 
road, as the travellers, at nine miles distance from home, 
approached the first straggling buildings of Peasmarsh. 
These were humble enough, but the market-place presented 
an imposing array of country gentry’s winter houses, an old 
square-towered Norman church, and a curious town-hall and 
steeple. There were also, dropped down within its bounds. 


78 


LADY BELL. 


a ttatcli-roofed tavern, a dark, cavernous shop, having its 
gable to the street, with a hanging sign, and a door divided 
in the middle, a row of coopers’, cobblers’ — and booksellers’ 
stalls, and the jail, with its pair of stocks, yawning for 
rascally limbs, fixed into the wall. 

The market-place of Peasmarsh was gay to the y6ung 
student of human nature, after Trevor Court in the company 
of Squire Trevor. 

To Lady Bell’s juvenile satisfaction, the Trevors’ lodging 
was in the market-place, so that she could hope to see all 
that was going on, and hear constantly the social patter of 
clogs and pattens on the fiags beneath her windows. 

Lady Bell was so full of the novelty of the expected gaiety, 
that as soon as she had thrown off her travelling equipments, 
and swallowed her two o’clock dinner, she sat down at the 
window to lose nothing of the sight. She even began to 
convey the impressions which she received to Mr. Trevor, in 
a freedom of intercourse which had hardly existed between 
them before, in the course of their three rnonths’ wedlock. 
In the meantime he sat swallowing his wine and smoking his 
pipe, in an interval of repose, ere he sallied forth to meet his 
supporters. 

“ They are posting up bills at the corner ; a gentleman 
from the tavern is taking care of the operation. I see in at 
the open door — there is the company sitting round the table, 
covered with glasses. Now I am sure they are drinking a 
toast — one of them has leapt on the table before the door is 
shut. What a trade they are driving in blue ribands in 
that shop ! Do all the women in Peasmarsh wear knots of 
blue ribands? Here comes a chair. I vow the lady is 
going to be set down at the tavern door ; no, she has only 
made one of her chairmen beckon to a person within, and a 
billet is fiung to her from the window. Why, Mr. Trevor, 
the street lads must know that one of the candidates is 


THE ELECTION AT PEASMARSH. 79 

arrived in the town, for they are beginning to gather 
materials for a bonfire.” 

“ Yon are easily tickled, my lady, for one who has seen so 
many fine sights ; the town air, even of a hole like Peas- 
marsh, seems to agree mightily with you, when it sets your 
tongue a-wagging,” sneered the Squire; yet the man, in the 
middle of his grudging spite, was not unamused with the 
girl’s amusement, and was not unwilling that his young wife 
should be a little happier than she had been ; only she had* 
despised him and Trevor Court, and she should not imme- 
diately cease to suffer for it. 

Lady Bell drew back into her shell, stiffened not stung ; 
she did not care enough for the man who had made himself 
her husband to be stung by him. 

Lady Bell had nothing to do in what followed with the in- 
numerable meetings of influential gentlemen, the speeches, 
including the bawling of speakers till they were hoarse, the 
rows, extending to the raising of walking canes and unsheath- 
ing of rapiers. All this was echoed by the clamour, the fisti- 
cuffing, the brickbatting, the cutlass-wielding of the populace. 
And the whole was but a small by-play preceding the close 
canvassing, the show on the hustings, the polling, the pro- 
claiming, and the chairing. 

But Lady Bell had her own part to play. She was ordered 
to drive out all day, and every day, in the streets and lanes 
of Peasmarsh. At first when she did so, her relish for the 
town was impaired. Excited tradesmen and their apprentices, 
mechanics, drawers from the tavern taps, street-criers, came 
round her, cheering or hooting. They cried the party cries 
which were then rending the nation, “ Down with Wilkes,” 
or “Wilkes for ever,” according as they were tory or whig 
(Squire Trevor was a tory), as if she were Wilkes, or Wilkes’s 
wife at least. 

The mob pressed up to the chariot, and would either have 


8o 


LADY BELL. 


had out the horses and harnessed themselves instead, dragging 
their future member’s wife with wild jolts and wilder hurrahs, 
or would have pelted “ the machine which held Trevor’s wife ” 
with mingled opprobrium and filth, and Lady Bell quailed 
before the ordeal. 

But Lady Bell’s courage merely wanted steeling — she be- 
longed to a class of rulers. Soon she could smile — a pale, 
handsome, child-like young woman as she was — and look 
•around her unmoved, save by the necessity of graciously 
acknowledging greetings, whether she were applauded or 
abused, bowed before or bemired. It came naturally to 
her, and stimulated her to sit aloft there in her bom element 
of leadership amidst historic feuds. 

Then Lady Bell was .commanded to go into every shop in 
the town to make abundant purchases, of the most diverse 
description, from satin to moleskin, from buttons to carriage- 
wheels, from sheep’s tar to eau-de-luce. She was next directed 
to go into every householder’s dwelling, with her “ fellows ” 
bearing after her, from the stuffed and piled carriage, any 
article that was portable, that Lady Bell might give gifts and 
bestow largesses, like an eastern princess on her progress. 

“ And see that you show none of your confounded insolence, 
Lady Bell,” was roared after her by her husband, as she 
departed on her mission, for between bating and fuddling, in 
the extreme exigences of an election. Squire Trevor was fast 
being driven beside himself. 

It was a misconception and an untruth that Lady Bell’s 
airs took the form of insolence to her inferiors in rank, when 
they did not trespass against her notions of decorum and the 
respect which she believed was due to her. On the contrary, 
she was gracious and affable in these circumstances. 

Lady Bell loved to confer favours ; she was in a state of 
crass ignorance in many respects, knew nothing whatever of 
the merits of political questions, and had little to say when 


THE ELECTION AT PEASMARSH. 


8i 


the people were strangers to her. But her simple smile, her 
youth and its charms, her rank, went a far way to insure her 
popularity and promote her cause. It was hers, she was 
eager for it, she had worked herself up into eagerness even 
apart from the selfish consideration that Mr. Trevor’s being 
returned member for Peasmarsh, was the sole chance of Lady 
Bell’s being restored to her Elysian fields. 

There had been a little mystery about the candidate on the 
whig side, some uncertain bringing forward and withdrawal of 
suitable men, and Lady Bell had been ten days at Peasmarsh 
before she was aware of who was her husband’s opponent. 

The enlightenment broke upon Lady Bell suddenty, and 
with a little shock. Her course in driving one day was 
interrupted by the rival course of another chariot, with a 
similar train of friends and foes. In the chariot sat the 
handsome young lady whom Lady Bell had first seen in 
church, but the lady’s young husband had not left her to 
brave a street mob alone, he was seated beside her. 

Mrs. Sundon’s fine face was pointed keenly for contest. 
Mr. Sundon looked almost animated and alive — as people 
seldom saw him look — not beside the real prize of his life, 
the beautiful, witty, wealthy woman who had elected him, 
against all hostile representations, her husband, but only in 
a tavern over the last bottle, when brawls were impending 
and blood was ready to flow, over cards and dice, in a dog- 
fight or a cock-pit, on a race-ground. 

One need not condemn that man alone — there were hun- 
dreds and thousands of men like him, desperately jaded, 
mind and body, with the springs of life poisoned early, who 
might have been capable of higher and better things. 

The couple were swift to recognise Lady Bell’s position, as 
she recognised theirs, and to show her what had become the 
courtesy of foes. It touched her all the more when she 
recalled it, after she had happened to see from her window 

4 *- 


G 


82 


LADY BELL. 


Mr. Trevor’s encounter with Mr. Sundon in the market-place, 
In return for the grace of Mr. Sundon’s punctilious bow, 
Squire Trevor had vouchsafed only a savage scowl. 

Into the house of one of the voters Lady Bell walked on 
the heels of Mrs. Sundon, going her rounds on a similar 
errand, so that the two ladies had nearly jostled each other 
in the doorway. 

But the elder lady gave way to the younger, before Lady 
Bell, in her agitation, could think of what she ought to do. 
“ The place is yours. Lady Bell Trevor,” said a sweet, sonor- 
ous voice, with a shade of emphasis on the Lady ^ell. Then, 
as if regretting even that slightly ungracious inference, Mrs. 
Sundon added, ‘‘ I am happy to yield it to you ; ladies need 
not quarrel though gentlemen contest seats in Parliament;” 
finally, she remarked with a still franker, more winning cor- 
diality, “ I think that you and I should not quarrel, Lady 
Bell.” 

“I think not, madam,” sighed Lady Bell, in a troubled 
fashion, conscious, with no ignoble envy, that Mrs. Sundon 
was her superior in manners as well as in years. 

“If I don’t have a care,” reflected Lady Bell in alarm, 
and with the crude unmincing expression of opinion which 
belonged to her years and her generation, “I’ll soon be as 
great a brute as Trevor.” 

The heat of the election gTCw intense and consuming, 
overthrowing all barriers, swallowing up all scruples, till it 
was not without call that the sheriff, and a company of 
soldiers were looked for, at the last moment, to keep the 
tottering peace. 

Lady Bell’s room in the Trevors’ lodgings had come to be 
invaded with the Squire’s supporters, agents, and whippers-in, 
as they sought privacy in which to make up their lists, yell the 
sum total, wrangle, start new and more audacious schemes, 
and openly discuss infamous and scoundrelly plans. 


THE ELECTION AT PEASMARSH. 


83 


In spite of the weight of Mr. Trevor’s character and stake 
in the county, there arose a horrible suspicion that the whig 
interest had gained ground in Peasmarsh, and that the tories 
might be defeated. 

Porbid it, all ye powers of moral orthodox landowners, 
since Gregory Sundon, of Chevely, in addition to having 
been a gamester of the first water, a hard drinker, a fre- 
quenter of riotous company, after the pattern of his worthy 
master in statesmanship, was also a renegade to Charles 
James Fox’s revolutionary American creed. Let all the 
powers of torydom be fitly called in to circumvent such vile 
traitors ! 

“Egad! I would rather call Greg. Sundon out, and wing 
him before the nomination day,” suggested a fire-eater. 

“Sooner be winged yourself, Ted,” said a listener, mock- 
ingly. “ Sundon is the best shot and swordsman between 
this and London.” 

“Had large practice, you see,” a third took up the tale 
briskly, “ has us at a shameful disadvantage. Why not steal 
a march upon him — not wing him, but deal him a stray blow 
with a cudgel, or the flight of a stone, to crack his conceited 
pate or smash a limb? That would keep him out of our 
way for a week or two ; teach him better manners, — be 
for his good in the long-run;” the speaker looked round 
triumphantly. 

Squire Trevor was sitting, leaning back, in an arm-chair, 
a member of his tumultuous council, but preserving a grim 
silence. At the proposal his florid face darkened to purple, 
his red-brown eyes glared, he smote the table with his fist, 
and swore, with a ghastly grin, that he should’ like to be 
there to see when the barbarous stroke was dealt to his rival. 

No one looking on the Squire’s inflamed, distorted face 
could doubt that if he took vengeance into his own hand, 
there might be grievous danger of the rattening — the word 


84 


LADY BELL. 


might not exist then, hut the thing was there, and in higher 
walks of life— passing swiftly into murder. 

‘‘Gentlemen, let me warn you,” interposed an anxious 
attorney, “that kidnapping on the occasion of an election is 
set down as a grave crime in the calendar, and is punished 
accordingly.” 

“Who talked of kidnapping, Torney, unless it were your 
long-nosed, pettifogging self?” the nervous hint was angrily 
put down. 

“ Said and done, Bennet, what you wot of. But Sundon 
parades the town, hacked hy a ragged regiment of demo- 
cratic dogs.” 

“Not always,” was rejoined significantly. “ He goes 
privately every time the London mail comes in to meet and 
receive his duns’ letters, hillet-doux, and what not, into his 
own hands, rather than his fellow of a servant should bring 
them to him before his stuck-up madam of a wife. I warrant 
there are plenty of scores to settle unknown to her. I can 
see him myseK walking up and down, wearing a mutfier, 
which don’t disguise him from me, for as good as half-an-hour 
sometimes, in front of the inn-yard, before the coach comes in.” 

“ Is the mail extraordinary true to its hour?” investigated 
one of the conclave, curiously. 

“Lord ! no ; how should it be, when it has to run the risk 
of being stopped by highwaymen at any one of the half- 
dozen lone bits between this and London?” replied the 
last speaker, in some surprise. 

“ Suppose it to be stopped on Toosday,” insinuated the 
satisfied inquirer, with an accent of the utmost cheerfulness, 
as he lolled against the wainscot, and kept his hands in his 
pockets, ‘ ‘ when there may be more than Master Sundon on 
the out-look, a score of our fellows, armed with a hazel twig 
or two, in case their neighbour townsmen be up also, and a 
little too warm ; hey. Mister Torney?” 


THE ELECTION AT PEASMARSH. 


85 


“ Excuse me, Sir John,” stammered the man of law and 
peace, ‘‘I cannot he a party to any sort of outrage, however 
provoked, or pardonable, or mitigated.” 

“Nobody’s asking you, man,” was the contemptuous dis- 
missal ; “ hold your tongue and shut your ears, that’s all, or 
worse may come of it.” 

There was another pair of ears inquisitive, bewildered, 
appalled, which, whatever came of it, were not shut, though 
sometimes they had grown weary within the last few days of 
the incessant, harsh gabble. 

Earmer Huggins was down with rheumatism, and must be 
wrapped in blankets and brought to the booth in a chair, at 
the peril of his life. 

Butcher Grreen was trimming, the low rogue, standing out 
on a presentation to the grammar school for his clever son. 
What business had butchers with clever sons ? or having 
them, couldn’t the butchers keep their lads to the slaughter- 
house and ‘ the scales, as a better trade, after all, than the 
beggarly professions without patrons ? 

Dame Hellish had all the odd voters at her finger ends, in 
return for her vintner’s custom, bought up in the first place, 
to be lavished gratis in the second. 

Lady Bell had little to do with these unattractive details. 
Her part in the business of the election was well past, till 
Mr. Trevor was member, if he should be member. She was 
overlooked by the gentlemen, because they had no time to 
spend upon her, and because they had found out for them- 
selves that it did not chime in with Squire Trevor’s humour 
to have his aristocratic young wife noticed, and it was not 
for them to thwart the Squire at the present moment. 

But there was a fascination to Lady Bell in the very name 
of Sundon, conjuring up^ as it did, the beautiful young 
woman of the rank and fashion to which Lady Bell was born 
and bred, more fortunate than Lady Bell, inasmuch as Mrs. 


86 


LADY BELL. 


iSundon’s sun had not been ecKpsed before noon. She bad 
not been sentenced to be the desolate young wife of an old 
bear of a country Squire, who would tie her down to bis bear- 
garden, and bait her with bis cousins — ^parsons’ wives and 
daughters. Mrs. Sundon bad hope and heart in her youth 
and beauty as she shared and enjoyed life with her comely 
and elegant young husband, whose listlessness and haggard- 
ness even had a charm, by force of contrast, in Lady Bell’s 
eyes. 

Lady Bell sat with her knotting in the far window, her . 
hand with its shuttle arrested, her scared eyes and ears 
watching furtively and greedily the club of men by whom her 
presence was forgotten. 

In the absorbing, horrified speculation on the broken 
words and dark hints which reached her. Lady Bell forgot 
the market-place and the country-town sights which had 
occupied her when she had arrived at Peasmarsh, and on 
which the declining September sun was now brooding peace- 
fully. 

With her woman’s faculty of leaping at a conclusion, 
and anticipating every result — painting it in extreme and 
exaggerated colours — Lady Bell saw the couple whom she 
had wistfully admired and envied in a new light. 

She saw the slim, refined gentleman suddenly set upon in 
the dusk, by a band of hired and armed ruffians, and 
brutally mauled and beaten. 

She saw his battered, disfigured body carried home to his 
wife. 

She saw the high-spirited, dignified woman flinging her- 
self down, in the abandonment of grief, by the wreck, apos- 
trophizing it under fond names, lifting the unconscious head 
on her knees, wiping the blood-stains from the face, to leave 
it white and blank, tearing her hair at the shame and anguish 
of the sight. 


CHAPTER Xn. 


BETEAYA.L. 

T ADY BELL could no more remain quiet under the know- 
ledge she had acquired than she could help to commit 
the contemplated deed. 

She was wildly at a loss how to proceed, hut whatever 
plans crossed her mind, the idea never entered it to interfere 
by remonstrating with Squire Trevor. She knew by ex- 
perience how bitterly hard it would be to turn him from any 
project. She seemed to know, as well, of how little moment 
she was to him, so that her opinion would not weigh a 
feather’s weight in the scale with regard to what he should 
do or leave undone ; nay, that any overture on her part to 
defend Mr. Sundon, would probably only accelerate his fate. 

Lady Bell had very hazy notions of the prerogatives and 
powers of the Sheriff, who was not to arrive till the last 
moment, and of the Mayor, whose house, among others, she 
had invaded. There was the clergyman, another authority 
on the side of order and humanity, but she had already 
ascertained that he was a canon of the nearest cathedral, and 
was then in residence. 

She was in dreadful uncertainty as to her course of action, 
but she held one impression which was not uncertain. She 
liad the persuasion rooted in her from the first, that if she 
lodged information of the intended assault on Mr. Sundon. 


88 


LADY BELL. 


and so prevented tlie wicked stratagem and endangered the 
tories’ success in the election, she dared never return to 
Sq[uire Trevor. Her own guiltj face would bear evidence 
against her ; she would be condemned to flee for her life 
before the brutal wrath of her husband. 

The alternative would not have been so awful if she had 
possessed the faintest shadow of a city of refuge. But the 
circumstances were very much the same as when her uncle, 
Mr. Grodwin, had taunted her with her dependence, she had 
no place to turn to, no friend to espouse her cause or to 
afford her shelter. 

She would never go back to her uncle Grodwin and her 
aunt Die in the lurid light of their wasted fortunes. 

She would , die rather than have recourse to Mrs. Walsh 
and Sally, even if that had been to any purpose so far as 
escaping from the Squire was concerned. On the contrary, 
they would be certain to hand her over immediately to justice 
and her husband, with no farther plea for mercy than might 
be contained in the extorted pledge, that in place of killing 
her outright and being hung for it, as Earl Eerrars had killed 
his servant and been hung in the last generation, he should 
be contented with sentencing her to perpetual imprisonment, 
with his kinswomen to be her jailers. 

However, there was a difference between Lady Bell’s past 
and present trouble. When Squire Trevor had paid her his 
detested addresses, and it was not in her power to reject 
them with contumely, there had only been herself to think of, 
her single interest to consider, and that had not been enough 
to dissolve the numbing spell of conventionality. 

Now her invention was quickened into the liveliest exercise 
by the urgent necessity of others besides herself. The Sun- 
dons — wife and husband — and not Lady Bell alone, were at 
stake ; and, if she aided them, there was no choice of evils 
left her, no deadly dulness of dutiful respectability as opposed 


BETRAYAL. 


8q 


to mad defiance and destitution. In her youthful simplicity 
she honestly believed that she must flee for her life from the 
aroused fury of Squire Trevor. If there existed a purpose of 
sacrificing Mr. Sundon, ten times more would she be sacri- 
ficed. 

When the thought occurred to her that she might write to 
warn the Sundons, she rejected it as being a step unworthy 
of the situation, for she was wound up to a tragic pitch. The 
letter might miscarry ; if it Avere anonymous it had a great 
chance of being passed over ; if it had the name and style of 
the writer the danger was as great, while the success was 
less certain than if the communication were made in a personal 
interview. 

Lady Bell seemed driven to a decisive step, the shortness 
of the time pricking her on. It was on a Sunday evening 
that the plot of disabling Mr. Sundon was loosely framed at 
Mr. Trevor’s lodgings, and the mail from London came in on 
Tuesday. 

On Monday morning Lady Bell fook the opportunity of a 
messenger’s going to Trevor Court to send her maid on the 
pad behind him, to do an errand for her mistress. 

Lady Bell then told the woman of the lodging that her 
head ached, which was true enough, and that she should not 
come down to Mr. Trevor’s mid-day dinner. But in place of 
lying down on her bed, as she was understood to do, she put 
on her least conspicuous walking dress, which happened; 
oddly, to be a scarlet cloth riding-habit. But this military 
costume was largely worn by squires’ and clergyman’s wives 
and daughters of the period; a dozen ladies, similarly attired, 
might be looked for doing their shopping and showing 
themselves in Peasmarsh, under the pressure of the brisk 
hospitalities of the election weeks. 

To the scarlet riding-habit Lady Bell added a hat with a 
thick veil appended to it, and a neckcloth which, in order to 


QO 


LADY BELL. 


protect th.e under half of the face, was then in use by ladies 
as well as by gentlemen. 

The girl, possessed by one idea, had, girl-like, a certain 
exultation in the swift ingenuity and dramatic correctness of 
Her arrangements. 

Thus dressed for the occasion, she stole out of the house, 
and when she was no longer within sight of the windows, 
she took a note ready written from her pocket, and hired a 
boy to carry it back to the landlady. In this note Lady Bell 
Trevor stated that she had gone out to take the air for her 
bad headache, when she found that she must pay a visit to a 
friend whom she had discovered in Peasmarsh, and who 
might detain her till late. 

This note she trusted would arrive after her husband was 
deeply engaged for the afternoon, and would serve to satisfy 
the landlady and prevent her raising any alarm, should she 
miss Lady Bell. There was little danger to be feared from 
Squire Trevor after the afternoon was well spent, for politics 
were thirsty work. 

Lady Bell had achieved the first part of her slender pro- 
gramme without misadventure. She turned her steps to the 
High Street, in which was the Sundons’ lodging, and reached 
them without being recognised. 

She entered without much difiiculty, and still unrecognised, 
in the perpetual levee held inside and overflowing to the door. 
When she inquired of a busy maid-servant if she could 
speak with Madam Sundon, she was pretty sure of a gracious 
answer, for Madam Sundon could not afford to dismiss any 
petitioner unheard during these days. 

But the house was so full, and the rooms so much occupied, 
that Lady Bell was detained for a time in the passage, and 
then told that she must be taken to wait in Madam Sundon’s 
bedroom, till madam could spare a moment. 

In making her way through the throng. Lady Bell found 


BETRAYAL. 


9 ^ 


much the same noisy flushed supporters wh un she had left 
behind. One man was vociferating fierce abuse ; but not of 
Sundon — of Trevor. ‘‘The ruffianly old tyrant,” the orator 
called her husband, and she heard the sentence with a thrill 
of antagonism which she had never expected to feel. 

Just so, no doubt, she had railed at her husband in set 
phrase, but she seemed first to realise vividly, at this moment, 
that he was her husband ; his credit was her credit, and with 
him, as a result beyond recall, whatever her personal feel- 
ings, she must rise or fall. 

Mrs. Sundon’ s room was in disorder, like the rest of the 
house, but it had, as it appeared to Lady Bell’s wide-open 
eyes, many pleasant tokens. There were strewn about little 
knick-knacks of a toilet-service, hand mirrors in ivory, silver 
pouncet boxes, either for a man’s or a woman’s use, which 
Lady Bell had not cast eyes on since the sale of Lady Lucie 
Penruddock’s effects. 

A gentleman’s set of cobweb lace rufi3.es and frills — of 
which it was fine ladies’ work, particularly when it was a 
work of love, to do the exquisite mending — lay, with the 
needle and thread . hanging from the rent, and the gold 
thimble in an open work-box. 

A gentleman’s miniature, in which the powdered hair was 
represented in a queue, tied with a blue riband — the last 
suiting the effeminate fairness of the complexion, was half 
drawn from its case. Lady Bell saw at a glance that it was 
a likeness of Mr. Sundon, which had the place of honour on 
the table. 

She had not done glancing at these details, and starting 
nervously at every movement, when Mrs. Simdon, in the 
most charming of white morning gowns and close white caps, 
like a baby’s cap, came into the room. She stopped short in 
amazement when she saw who was her visitor. 

Mrs. Sundon had supposed that it was some humble solicitor 


92 


LADY BELL. 


of her patronage, some enterprising daughter of a townsman, 
catching at a straw’s pretence to enable her to boast that she 
had seen and spoken privately with the wife of the future 
member. 

Lady Bell Trevor,” exclaimed Mrs. Sundon ; “to what 
have I the honour” — and then her courtesy and her com- 
passionate liking for the young girl came in full force to 
qualify'- the stateliness of the address. “Pray be seated. 
Lady Bell, I am happy to see you — but have you walked 
through the streets to-day — walked alone ? My dear Lady 
Bell, excuse me, but I think I am a little older than you, 
and have seen rather more of the world. Squire Trevor 
must be extraordinary careless of the charge he has under- 
taken,” said Mrs. Sundon, in an unmistakable accent of 
frank disapprobation. “ I am sure I am a great deal better 
able to look after myself than you are, but my husband 
would not suffer me to step across the door-step alone, in an 
electioneering town.” 

“Pardon me, Mrs. Sundon,” objected Lady Bell shyly, 
“ Mr. Trevor does not know that I am here, or abroad at all.’ 

“What! you have ventured out without his knowledge?’ 
questioned Mrs. Sundon, still with large-hearted openness, 
and an integrity equal to her generosity. “ But that’s not 
right. Lady Bell, indeed I must tell you. You are very 
young, and I am young, too, but I know this much, that it is 
very hazardous, and treading on unsafe ground, for you to 
steal a march on your husband, whatever he may be — 1 
mean, however he may provoke you. The j^ounger and more 
unfriended you are, and the more ill-matched you are — 

forgive me again — but one sees that written on your face 

you ought to be more careful not to give your husband 
ground of offence, or the bad world — I am frighted it is bad 
and cruel — cause to talk.” 

“ At least you ought not to blame me, Mrs. Sundon,” said 


BETRAYAL. 


93 


Lady Bell, turning away lier head to hide the tears of mor- 
tification running down her cheeks, for I came to serve you 
and yours.” 

“You came to serve me, poor little angel?” protested Mrs. 
Sundon, speaking with as indescribable a softness now as she 
had spoken severely in her youthful righteousness a moment 
before, and hovering round Lady Bell, attracted by her with 
the strong, tender attraction which these young women had 
for each other. “ What good deed did you think to do me? 
I know it was good, for you have an artless, gracious 
face.” 

“It was to bid you to have a care of Mr. Sundon,” Lady 
Bell hurried to deliver her warning, “ and to impress upon 
him to be mindful, and not venture about the town alone, as 
you have chid me for doing. Believe me, madam, there is 
greater risk for a gentleman who has many enemies in the 
place than for a foolish creature — not an angel — with regard 
to whom you have spoken truly when you called her un- 
friended.” 

So soon as Mrs. Sundon guessed who was threatened, her 
whole bearing changed. 

Mrs. Sundon was no longer occupied with Lady Bell. An 
infinitely nearer and dearer interest engrossed the listener ; 
she never rested tiU she had drawn the particulars from 
Lady Bell, and then she declared, with paling cheeks and 
widening eyes, “ Grregory Sundon must hear this ; it warrants 
me in interrupting him, however engaged. What might 
have been the consequences, if this wicked plot had not been 
discovered in time ? I owe you an everlasting debt of grati- 
tude, Lady Bell, and so does he. Wait till I come back.” 

But after Mrs. Sundon had run to the door, she turned 
round, as if, in the middle . of her alarm on her husband’s 
account, she had found room for another’s sti'ait, and pledged 
herself solemnly, “ You shall be protected. Lady Bell; your 


94 


LADY BELL. 


noble amends for the inhuman project will not be let rebound 
on your head” — and was gone. 

The pledge was of no avail ; the moment that Lady Bell 
was alone again, the shame of her position, which had struck 
her while she was making her way through Squire Sundon’s 
people, returned to her with greater force than ever. A 
horror of what she had done seized upon her, and rendered 
her incapable of any other consideration. 

What ! remain and encounter her husband’s opponent, in 
order to denounce her husband to him, perhaps be taken 
before the Mayor, and compelled to repeat her words publicly, 
have the officers of justice sent, on her information, against 
Mr. Trevor and his associates, and be regarded with loathing 
as a traitor in their camp, as well as pursued by their ven- 
geance to her dying day ! 

No ! she could not bear that. She had said enough to put 
Mr. Sundon and his wife on their guard ; she had meant, in 
a vague way, to appeal to Mrs. Sundon for advice and 
assistance — she was so ignorant that she did not know that 
their bestowal might lead the bestower into a serious difficulty 
— in making her escape farther from Squire Trevor. But 
every other trouble was merged in her present recoil from an 
interview with Mr. Sundon. This imminent danger seemed 
to involve greater and sorer evils than that of a desperate 
solitary flight. 

With her head in a whirl, at the height of her panic. Lady 
Bell did not wait a moment after Mrs. Sundon had quitted 
her. Lady Bell went out as she had come in, through the 
swarming concourse, undetected. 


CHAPTEE Xm. 


FLIGHT. 

JN the street Lady Bell set out walking rapidly — she dared 
not run — straight on in the opposite direction from her 
lodging. She had a conviction that she would get out of the 
town presently, and on the great road, where she might over- 
take a conveyance. 

She had an instinctive perception that Mrs. Sundon, how- 
ever grateful and concerned that Lady Bell should not suffer 
by her magnanimity, would be too much taken up with Mrs. 
Sundon’s own husband, with enlarging to him on the risk he 
had run, and the necessity of prudence in his future move- 
ments, to enter at once into a searching investigation of what 
had become of Lady Bell, and an eager tracking of her foot- 
steps. After Mrs. Sundon had discovered that Lady Bell had 
not waited, but had gone with as little ceremony as she had 
come, Mrs. Sundon would naturally conclude that she had 
returned immediately to her husband, to prevent all suspicion, 
and to carry out her programme. For Lady Bell’s own sake, 
Mrs. Sundon would resolve to be quiet on the incident of her 
visit. 

Lady Bell reckoned herself secure of not being missed by 
her husband for hours ; and so soon as she was beyond the 
town the probability of her being recognised was lessened. 
She could venture to walk more slowly,, and not wear out hei 


LADY BELL. 


96 

strength at starting, to raise her veil, to push down the 
neckcloth wound about her chin and mouth, and allow herself 
a breath of the cool autumn air, iii the fever heat of her 
progress, and the agitation which had attended on her 
adventure. 

It was in the latter end of the month of September, but 
the season and weather were fine, and there were still houi’s 
of daylight. 

Lady Bell was furnished with money ; she had got an 
ample sum to spend at Peasmarsh. The idea which had 
been in her head when she had still thought of confiding her 
case to Mrs. Sundon, and bespeaking her support, was to be 
put in the way of reaching London as speedily as possible. 

When in London she might apply to any survivor of Lady 
Lucie’s friends to hide her from Squire Trevor and his 
vengeance, to procure for her a separation from him, to 
help her to get her own livelihood. This would no longer be 
by the poorest place at Court — ^Lady Bell had resigned that 
aristocratic resource — Queen Charlotte was too good and 
happy a wife herself to pardon readily the errors of a miser- 
able young wife. 

But Lady Bell’s vision had enlarged so that she conceived 
— ^Lady Bell though she was, she might be dame de compagnie 
to some old lady of quality, on the model of Lady Lucie 
Penruddock. 

Or she might turn her little talents and accomplishments, 
the frivolousness of which had been so scouted, to use, after 
all, by imparting them to the children of some great house. 

Her imagination had grown, like everything else about 
her (she was half an inch taller since her marriage), though 
even her imagination could not persuade her that the* bread 
of service would taste anything save bitter to a woman of her 
degree, but it would be less bitter than what she had eaten 
at Trevor Court and St. Bevis’s, and bitter as it might be, it 


FLIGHT. . 97 

was all til© bread that remained to her, unless sbe were 
willing to go back and be killed by Squire Trevor. 

On tbe contrary, sbe could not belp rejoicing tbat sbe bad 
left bim and bondage behind, and tbat tbe world was before 
ber. Tbe sense of freedom and of a new life sent a certain 
glow and tbrob of elasticity tbrougb ber veins. 

Lady Bell trudged on alongside tbe ragged hedges, and 
keeping by tbe posts which marked tbe king’s highway, in 
tbe broken, deeply-rutted road. Sbe ceased to see any trace 
of tbe election, beyond a spurring messenger now and again. 
Tbe few travellers were of an honest though homely descrip- 
tion. Tbe electioneering bad don© good for tbe moment, 
scoured tbe neighbouring country, and collected tbe stoutest 
beggars, tbe most rampageous tramps, into their dens in 
Peasmarsb. 

There was a rustic yeoman, mounted on bis best cart-horse, 
with bis sister behind bim, clasping bim round tbe capacious 
waist, trotting away to spend the evening in bunting the 
slipper and roasting hot cockles with some neighbours. 
There were farm-servants and labourers hieing home from 
their day’s work ere night-fall. 

These wayfarers glanced with a little wonder at Lady Bell, 
even in ber ordinary scarlet habit, and ber neckcloth, as a 
lady who ought to be on ber horse, with ber servant behind 
ber, and who might be on foot and by herself as tbe result 
of an accident, or in consequence of keeping a private appoint- 
ment. But these were worthy people who took their neighbours’ 
adventures coolly, and did not, when they were not accosted 
and asked to interfere,, see themselves called on to forsake 
their proper business and pleasure for the sake of a third 
party, in an adventure which might be sorry enough. 

The countryfolks were much the same as those whom Lady 
Bell had stared at in the Kght of a novelty on the occasion of 
her journey from London to St. Bevis’s. It was not quite a 
5 H 


LADY BELL. 


98 

year since then ; Lady Bell was still only between fifteen 
and sixteen, an age, indeed, not very practical, and alter- 
nating between rashness and timidity. 

She walked in the lengthening shadows and growing 
chilliness, not knowing whither she walked, only feeling that 
she was getting tired and footsore. She resisted, for a won- 
derful length of time, the perplexity and downcastness which 
stole over her, and took the place of her foolish satisfaction. 

But fatigue and uncertainty increased until they well-nigh 
overpowered her, and she was in danger of sinking down at 
any moment in utter exhaustion and consternation, weeping 
at the prospect of having to stay there all night, and of dying 
of cold, if she were not murd-rred by foot-pads. 

At last a country cart, on which a number of pieces of 
furniture, chests of drawers, and bookcases were piled, indi- 
cating the removal from one dwelling to another of some 
household of condition, came along, and drew up just after it 
had passed Lady Bell. 

She was too inexperienced a traveller, and had been too 
dispirited to call to the driver and ask him to give her a cast 
in his cart. When he stopped, her strained nerves caused 
her heart to beat fast, while she urged her trembling steps 
to carry her on, as she pretended not to notice the stoppage. 

The driver was occupied with a commission and a puzzle 
of his own. He first peered through the sinking sunbeams, 
and next shouted after her, leaping from his cart, flinging 
down his reins — confident in the discretion of his team of 
horses, running heavity in pursuit, and finally la3dng a 
powerful hand on Lady Bell’s shoulder to arrest his object. 
Happily, he spoke in the same breath, before she shrieked 
out, with no Squire Trevor near at this time to come to the 
rescue. 

“Holloa! madam, be you parson’s new wife as I was to 
overtake and pick up, if so be she hadn’t met and ridden on 


FLIGHT. 


Q9 


with parson ? We ha’ mounted and wedged in the feather 
bed, ready, where yo’ll sit soft and steady, and I ha’ been 
told to take you to the town.” 

Lady Bell recovered her wits immediately. “No, my 
good man,” she said ; “I think the lady must have met her 
husband since it is getting late ; but, will you let me take 
her place till we come up with her ? ” 

The man in the smock had pulled his forelock, had looked 
and spoken simply and kindly, and she believed she could 
see that she might trust him, while her circumstances would 
hardly be rendered more wretched though he failed her. 

The driver consented without any difficulty, and hoisted 
her carefully to her seat, where as the horses jogged on, she 
could think of nothing for a time but the welcome rest and 
comparative ease which had succeeded her sore weariness and 
flagging exertions. 

But as the sun set, the evening fell, and the September 
night-air blew chill and cold, the horses floundered in and 
out of the holes in the road ; the countryman shouted to the 
horses in language which Lady Bell could not understand, 
with a violence which seemed to contradict her impression 
of his kindliness, and he took it upon him to beguile his 
way with a lusty stave, fit to split her ears. 

•Lady Bell began to think that she ' knew of no house to 
shelter her, no bed to lie down upon, except that on which 
she sat by a countryman’s charity. Her deed might 
have got wind, her husband might be following her ; and 
what countryman, for the very reason that he was simple 
and honest, would keep a runaway wife from her husband ? 
Then she commenced to shake and shiver as with an ague fit, 
till even the attention of her unobservant companion was 
called to her. 

“Dang it?” he cried in loud but not unfriendly surprise, 
“you are not so afeard as that of the foot-pads? Why, 


100 


LADY BELL. 


none of tlieni has been heard on for weeks in these parts. 
And if they did turn up, I lay it, they would not be the 
rogues to put hands on a cart with sticks of furniture, and 
the loike of a parson’s wife, with a husswife, and a groat 
or two in her pocket, i’stead o’ king’s gold. My Liz 
wouldn’t be so bad at the ghosteses ; but mappen it is the 
night air gotten into your bones— you beant cold, now, be 
you? There ought to be a bed-cover here-a-ways.” 

Lady Bell took heart again, and observed to herself that 
if he roared to his horses, he did not strike them ; and he 
spoke gently of his Liz, though poor little Lady Bell had 
not much experience of the home charities which soften a 
man, be he fine gentleman or clown. But she was capable 
of distinguishing that, her companion pulled out the woollen 
bed-cover, and wrapped it round her feet with good will. 

After that, the stars shone out in the sky ; and she could 
read this in them, with her childish, ignorant eyes, so much 
accustomed to look at artificial ceilings, whether painted in 
fresco, or moulded in stucco, or left simple oaken beams — so 
little used to look at the blue vault of heaven, what Daniel 
read on the walls of a Babylonish palace, the handwriting 
of a divine presence, the same which still finds the mighty 
monarch wanting, and watches over the desolate and 
oppressed. 

Back at Peasmarsh, Squire Trevor had been engaged in a 
deeper carouse than usual; had been carried home dead 
drunk to his lodgings, and had slept off the fumes which had 
mounted to his brain, before he learnt the absence of Lady 
BeU. 

In the meantime, the partially informed landlady had been 
quite unconcerned since she had learnt by Lady Bell Trevor’s 
own hand that she had gone to a friend’s where she might 
stay late. 

The landlady was not surprised that the young madam had 


I-'LIGHT. 


lO 


Btretched her tether and lain at her friend’s ; nay, was she 
not better . out of the way, the worthy woman calculated, 
though she herself was not at all sensitive with regard to the 
state in which her lodgers were brought home to her house. 
Moreover, she had known many a madam not much older 
than Lady Bell, make no bones about it, but take it as a 
matter of course, that their gentlemen should be lifted out 
of their chairs like so many logs on their return from the 
tavern, and not be fit to bite a finger when they were set 
down. 

But the woman was thrown into the utmost dismay by the 
effect of her words, and by the changeful gusts of passion, 
each more terrible than another, which her announcement 
roused in Mr. Trevor. 

Lady Bell had no friend in Peasmarsh, or out of it. She 
had played him false. She should rue it to the last day of 
her life. He should never let her put a foot within his 
doors again. 

Zounds! had a girl like Lady Bell been exposed in a place 
like Peasmarsh at a time like this, all night? She must 
have been decoyed, made away with. He would give Trevor 
Court — ^his life — to see her in honour and safety again. He 
would cause this woman, who had suffered Lady Bell to be 
lost, to pay for it with her miserable means, her vile body. 
He should have her before a magistrate, lay her in prison, 
and leave her to rot there among the demireps, and felons, 
who were fit company for her. 

‘‘Oh, gracious sir! have mercy on me!” implored the 
woman, “listen to reason! I never knowed there was any 
harm in my lady going abroad, when she had been fiourish- 
ing up and down, here and there, and everywhere, for the 
last ten days, by your own orders. Squire. I’ll take my 
Bible oath on that; and you too up to the ears with the 
’lection to bear her company. How could I know that she 


102 


LADY BELL. 


were to go wrong all at oncet, and be lost, and bring tbis 
trouble on my poor innocent bead?” 

An unexpected arrival came to tbe landlady’s aid. Mrs. 
Walsb, tbe Squire’s cousin, entered, walked up to tbe Squire, 
and spoke to tbe point of bis misery and bis conscience. 

“ I bave ridden over, cousin, because I bave beard word 
that, in your arrogance and lust to win tbis canvass, you bave 
been exposing Lady Bell, like a bird witb its wings un- 
dipped, to the snare of tbe fowler. Now, by tbe first word 
I bear from you, the bird has flown, or been stricken down, 
and its blood be on your bead.” 

The difiiculty of tbe situation in which Squire Trevor was 
placed, could not have been surpassed ; even if Lady Bell 
had deliberately selected tbe occasion of her quitting him for 
the purpose of baffling and discomfiting him, she could not 
have succeeded better. He could not throw up tbe chances 
of bis election, and abandon bis party and bis supporters in 
order to seek her. Political feeling ran too high then, to 
admit of such a course, even in a more devoted husband than 
Mr. Trevor. His very vanity and obstinacy which, without 
knowing that she bad divulged bis secret and provided for 
the safety of bis enemy, were enlisted in recovering his 
marital rights, and bumbbng and punishing Lady Bell, were 
equally enlisted in bis standing to bis colours, not showing 
tbe white feather, and going through with, and, if possible, 
winning the election. 

It became a matter of peevish policy even, and of rage 
repressed, that it might be more scathing in the end, to be 
gloomily silent on the domestic misfortune which had be- 
fallen him. He was constrained to seek in the dark in 
order to discover what could have become of Lady Bell. 
He had to let rumour give out that she was gone, while the 
person most concerned concealed the inexplicable nature 
of her absence. 


FLIGHT. 


103 


Thus it happened, that Lady Bell Trevor’s disappearance 
was whispered as a mystery in Peasmarsh, and that all sorts 
of astounding and contradictory accounts prevailed. 

It was said that Lady Bell had gone up secretly to London, 
to see about getting a King’s patent for conferring a peerage 
on Squire Trevor, because she, a peer’s daughter, could not 
brook the descent involved in her being married to a simple 
commoner. 

On the other hand, it was whispered that Squire Trevor 
was so displeased with his wife, because she had lost him 
Goodman Eickards’s vote, which Madam Sundon had be- 
guiled from Pickards, by presenting all the women of tlie 
Pickardses with feather tippets, while Lady Bell had only 
gone the length of bestowing cloth sponsors ; that Squire 
Trevor had determined, without delay, on parting from Lady 
Bell. As she had no private fortune, or even pin-money, he 
had whipped her off to France, with the view of confining 
her in a convent for the rest of her life. 

There were other individuals besides Mr, Trevor in Peas- 
marsh, who were behind the curtain ; but who, however 
anxious and full of pity, were reduced to listening to these 
absurd stories, and to doing nothing beyond contributing one 
or two opposite and enigmatical advertisements which were 
inserted, at this date, in the Peasmarsh Chronicle. 

The first was a bounce, and ran as follows ; “Information 
is demanded immediately by the lawful guardian, with re- 
spect to the minor who has broken bounds and is in hiding, 
whose hiding-place wiU be tracked without fail, and to whom 
it will be worse in the end if immediate satisfaction is not 
granted.” 

The second entreated thus : “ The deeply indebted friends 
of an innocent sufferer, beseech that sufferer to afford them 
the opportunity which is ardently desired to relieve unde- 
served misfortunes.” 


OHAPTEE XIV. 


EOYALTY AGAIN. 


EEIYED at tlie next market town to Peasmarsh, Lady 



^ Bell’s driver took ker into the lamp-lit inn yard ; and 
when she pressed a recompense upon him, looked douhtfiilly 
at it, and then, as if he would do more to deserve it, hailed a 
sleepy chambermaid. 

^‘Here, Dolly, here he a poor madam who has missed the 
coach, or summat, and I ha’ given her a lift. She be sheared 
and knocked up. Do you put her up at a reasonable charge, 
and see her on her way in the morning.” 

The woman undertook to lead the stranger to a bedroom 
immediately, and good-naturedly promised to bring her 
bread and cheese, and what was left of the hot cyder, before 
she herself retired for the night. 

In passing across the never dark or quiet yard, which was 
surrounded by an old-fashioned brown gallery, forming an 
outside passage from room to room on the second floor of the 
inn. Lady BeU could see the landlord standing, candlestick 
in hand, in the gallery, exchanging a parting word with one 
of his guests. She could hear the words, “There is no lady 
or gentleman wanting to go to Thorpe, who will pay for the 
spare seat in the chaise with you and your wife. There is 
no help for it, since you say you must get on ; but, as you 
complain, sir, it wiU come plaguey expensive.” 









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ROYALTY AGAIN. 


105 


Lady Bell liad been making her steps slower — she stood 
still altogether. She was, when she was not fit to sink and 
die, ready to see wonders and miracles in every step of this 
journey, and the sight of miracles braced her for the moment, 
and lent her genius, and a faculty of seizing every little 
incident and turning it to her purpose. 

“There is help for it, landlord,” she found courage and 
voice to call up, in contradiction of the man. “I, too, must 
get on to Thorpe. I shall take the vacant seat in the chaise.” 

The landlord and the gentleman thus suddenly interrupted, 
leapt asunder like two detected conspirators on the stage. 
The landlord held down his candle, and threw its light on 
the slender little figure in the ordinary lady’s travelling- 
dress, standing in the court below, while the gentleman 
cried, “ By Jove ! this smacks of magic ! ” 

But the conclusion was arrived at by a third person. A 
lady, with her head enveloped in a night-cap, put it out of a 
door opening into the gallery, and declared promptly, “It is 
a piece of uncommon good luck. "We cannot afford, for our 
child’s sake, to spend a shilling that we can spare — ^make the 
bargain,” and withdrew with as little loss of time as she 
had taken to present herself, and throw the weight of her 
authority into the scale. 

“Ahem! you understand, madam, that the single seat in 
the post-chaise, with the advantage of our protection and 
society, is dirt cheap at a sovereign,” called down the gentle- 
man from his gallery with an air of importance, and also 
with an evident eagerness to turn a penny, which savoured 
of possible impecuniosity in time past, and probable opulence, 
by dint of similar bargain-didving, in time to come. 

“I understand, and I agree,” answered Lady Bell, still 
standing in the yard below, awaiting the termination of the 
affair. 

“Then you hold yourself in readiness to be called at sis 

6 * 


io6 


LADY BELL. 


o’clock in the morning,” concluded the gentleman with a 
flourishing how, to which Lady Bell forced her stijffening 
knees to respond with a curtsey. 

The little transaction was complete — even to witnesses 
provided in the chambermaid and the landlord, not over 
well-pleased to find his departing and arriving guests in 
league thus to free him of their company. 

The second best bed at the Blue Bear, Dartwich, was not 
more comfortless than Lady Bell’s old closet at St. Bevis’s, 
or more devoid of domestic happiness and sympathy, than 
her room at Trevor Court. Her flight had prospered so far, 
alike beyond her expectations and her deserts ; its farther 
progress was secured, and Lady Bell, with the strain on her 
forces relaxed, found herself more fairly and fully tired than 
she had ever been before in the whole course of her fifteen 
years of life. She said her prayers, dropping asleep between 
every sentence, but without the least sense of mockery in the 
act ; on the contrary, with a pathetically delusive conviction 
at once of the rectitude and the inevitableness of her course. 
The moment she had finished, she sank into thorough insen- 
sibility, and was with difficulty aroused to keep her appoint- 
ment in the hodden grey of an autumn morning. 

When Lady Bell descended to the pubhc room, which, at 
that hour, was the kitchen of the inn, she found the party 
to which she had attached herself already assembled in 
travelling gear, and engaged without ceremony at breakfast. 

“Be quick, madam!” the lady in the mantle, with the 
baby in her lap, addressed her, in a tone of command, hardly 
looking at the person to whom she spoke, she was so f ull of 
her own affairs; “I must be at Thorpe before two o’clock, 
which, with the stoppage to bait, will take all our time. 
Besides, my child is ready to fall into his morning sleep, 
when he will travel with less hurt to him.” 

Lady Bell stared and submitted, not only because of the 


ROYALTY AGAIN. IO7 

exigencies of tlie case, but as submission must be natural to 
all who came in contact with this lady. 

There was a natural, ineffaceable power, amounting to 
majesty, which did not suit ill with the woman, even at an 
anti-climax like this, when she was sitting on a wooden stool, 
in a common inn-kitchen, herself wrapped in a faded duffle 
mantle, and occupied, between the intervals of feeding the 
child, in supping heartily from a basin of bread and milk for 
her own breakfast. 

Lady Bell had seen royalty in fitting trappings, before a 
chair of state, on a state occasion, surrounded by the highest 
ceremonial, and waited upon by the utmost homage. The 
girl had been loyally impressed, not only by the p.omp and 
show, but by the genuine queenliness which asserted itself 
in the plain, little, aggressively virtuous German lady who 
was then Queen-Consort of Great Britain. 

But she was now struck by the perception of another sort 
of queenliness, which is no less a birthright, and which does 
not belong to circumstances and situations, being born in the 
very nature, and pervading its every fibre. 

This lady’s full, frank tones, though they were sharper, 
bore a certain resemblance to Mrs. Sundon’s tones, so did her 
beauty to Mrs. Sundon’s beauty, for the stranger was also a 
beautiful woman, even more remarkably beautiful than Mrs. 
Sundon, and with a yet more distinguished cast of face. 

Lady Bell, in her fresh heroine worship, where Mrs. Sundon 
was concerned, could not have conceived that there might be a 
second Mrs. Sundon in the world, and that the second would 
be a successful rival of the first. 

But here she was, -and under the greatest disadvantages 
of dress, without Mrs. Sundon’s high-bred graciousness of 
manner to Lady Bell, and with the natural fullness of the 
magnificent proportions of her figure and features, attenuated 
apparently by recent ill-health, and dragged by work and care- 


io8 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Bell was actually nettled and mortified at having to 
own a successful rival with these odds against her, to the 
idol of Lady BelFs imagination ; for whom, in a fit of 
enthusiasm, she had been willing to sacrifice magnanimously 
the little good she had in the world. Notwithstanding, Lady 
Bell was comp'elled to admit the truth, and, with all her 
youthful, rampant, quality prejudices, to yield to the coolly 
asserted supremacy of the rival. 

The stranger lady’s companion was much more ordinary in 
appearance, though far better dressed than his partner. He 
was one of those fair-complexioned, regular-featured, well- 
grown men, in whose looks there is an inveterate common- 
placeness that in itself stamps them with vulgarity, more 
odious to some minds than the extreme of bizarre ugliness. 

The gentleman showed a strong disposition *to take the 
lead, including an irritating charge of the lady, who was the 
moving spirit of the party, and who could clearly not merely 
care for herself, hut mould the inclinations of others to suit 
her convenience. 

She moulded this man’s turn for management, which she 
could not altogether control, into a saving of trouble in minor 
matters. She allowed him to settle the bill which she had 
looked over, and to establish her and her baby in the very 
Corner of the carriage that she had selected for herself. She 
granted this license with a discreet kindliness of manner, as 
of a woman who made the best of her friend’s good qualities 
to the extent of setting store on them. 

Lady Bell detected in a moment, with regard to the gentle- 
man, that, though he wore a superfine riding-coat, he was 
not a man of quality ; while she did no more than suspect 
for a time that the noble-looking woman, in the duffle mantle, 
wlfo was acting as her own nursery-maid, had not been bred 
in Lady Bell’s rank of life. 

For some time after starting, the lady was engrossed with 


ROYALTY AGAIN. 


lOQ 

her child. When she had hushed it to rest, she took out a 
book, which she had carried in a reticule, and set herself to 
study it. 

The study was a matter of lively interest to the gentleman, 
as he bent forward and asked at intervals, “Have you got 
it yet ? Ain’t you mistress of it ? ” His insignificance did 
not flow forth in other chatter, happily for Lady Bell, who 
found him as taciturnly indifi’erent to her as the lady was, 
and much less of an involuntary interruption to her troubled 
thoughts. 

Excited by the change of scene, even by the mild motion 
of a postchaise which exhilarated Dr. Johnson, and by her 
strange fellow-travellers. Lady Bell was continually drawn 
from her cogitations. 

She would wonder if Squire Trevor had discovered her 
escape, and whether all Peasmarsh were up after her. She 
would ask herself what she should do next — ^what would 
become of her after she reached London. 

But absorbing as such considerations must have been to an 
older, more experienced woman. Lady Bell continually broke 
them off to be amused and interested like a child in the 
novelty of her present position, above all, to be fascinated 
with the lady who was more grandly beautiful than Mrs. 
Sundon. 

The lady had her baby asleep on one arm; with the 
other she held up the book, on which her fine dark eyes, 
their loveliest fringe of eyelashes drooping over them as she 
read, were riveted. Her lips were moving, as if repeating 
the sound of the characters in the intentness of the perusal. 
Once or twice Lady Bell was caught, and was held, as it 
were, spell-bound, by a look of sweetness or scorn or an- 
guish, in apparent sympathy with the text. 

What author could find such a reader, who was never 
turned from him by the September sunshine, or it? -cloud- 


no 


LADY BELL. 


sliadows on the sombre green, or the yellow and brown of 
leaves and fields, by the jolting of the carriage, by the 
presence of a stranger — only by the clenching of the baby’s 
little fist or its drowsy whimper, as it stirred and went to 
sleep again ! 

What reader could be thus book-struck, and utterly inac- 
cessible to what were to Lady Bell the irresistible influences 
of a journey ? 

At last the reader, announcing to her companion that she 
had done her task, closed her book, replaced it in the reti- 
cule, sat up, looked round her, and seemed preparing to be 
social. 

Her eye glanced inquisitively at Lady Bell. “ You missed 
a coach last night, madam ; coaches are often unpunctual, 
either one way or t’other. It is a shame, and should be seen 
to.” She began the conversation as if the party had just 
started. 

‘‘I was indebted to a chance ride,” answered Lady Bell 
evasively, with the tell-tale colour mounting in her cheeks, 
and a little air, as if she we're above being questioned. 

Her questioner took in these details, and looked half- 
keenly, half-commiseratingly, at her companion. 

The gentleman bent over, and whispered impressively to 
the lady, “ Have nothing to do with the girl. It is very odd 
that she should be travelling, and staying over the night 
alone at an inn. You know that you cannot be too par- 
ticular.” 

“Pshaw!” exclaimed the lady aloud, with a little impa- 
tience. Then she gazed out of the chaise window, and 
observed meditatively, “I am sure I once travelled this road 
before, and by myself. It must have been on my way to 
Guy’s Cliff, f^r in all my journeyings, as one of a large 
family, I never went alone, save then.” 

“I ought to remember the occasion, my dear,” declared 


ROYALTY AGAIN. 


I 1 1 


the gentleman with a smirk of self-satisfaction and congratu 
lation. 

“ So ought I,” responded the lady with a little sigh, pass- 
ing into a smile. “ I don’t believe that I was older than this 
young lady,” she added suddenly. 

Lady Bell started slightly. She had been disturbed in 
thinking of the woman before her, five or six and twenty, 
who had only once gone on a solitary journey, and who had 
now her baby nestling in her arms, and her husband, only 
too attentive, sitting opposite her. , 

• I am nearly sixteen years of age,” Lady Bell replied, for 
she had been schooling herself to make friends in that world 
on which she was launched; and she had been reflecting 
upon what account she would give of herself. The manners 
of this lady, a little impulsive and unfinished, as they were, 
did not repel Lady Bell, so she proceeded naively, ‘‘I have 
already been in service,” she brought herself to describe it 
thus ; “ unfortunately for me, madam, it was a hard service ; 
therefore I am looking out for another — I am bound for 
London on that errand.” 

The woman to whom Lady Bell spoke, if not a woman of 
quality, but something infinitely greater, knew the ring of 
quality as she knew the heart of human nature. 

She gave her husband a look to silence him, a telegraphic 
look, which said as plainly as look could say, This is a girl 
of position masquerading in broad day. Let her make what 
statement she will, can’t I see through disguises ? Ah ! set 
a thief to catch a thief. Don’t I know her kind, having 
counted women of quality among my friends since I was a 
poor little waif? If she be a runaway, as I strongly sus- 
pect, she is tolerably sure to be sought after, and there will 
be no loss to those who have taken care of her. In the 
meantime her company will be a gain to me, for you know 
that I aim at refined thoughts and high-bred dignity in the 


1 12 


LADY BELL. 


fullest swing of my profession. The worst is, that I am 
afraid She has done something amiss, poor child ! and I am 
not one of your lax people, who are all for wrong-doers, but 
surely it cannot be anything purely bad and unpardonable, 
and she so young.” 

‘‘Looking out for service, are you, madam?” the lady 
inquired openly, with no failure of respect in her tone, though 
she assumed a confidential manner, in defiance of her stolid 
partner’s coughs and winks. “Why, I think if you are not 
too difficult, and like to rest a little on your way to London, 
I might accommodate you for a week or two. I am Mrs. 
Siddons, late of Drury Lane, now of the Bath Theatre ; but 
I am on a tour, at present, in the midland counties, and I 
should be the better of a genteel, modest, young female to 
accompany me, to help me at my lodgings with my wardrobe, 
and with my little charmer, Henry.” 


CHAPTEE XV. 


LITE WITH THE PLAYERS. 

^HE prospect was not alluring to. Lady Bell. It soundul 
like a horrible descent and social fall. She had not 
even heard of Mrs. Siddons, for Mrs. Abingdon had been the 
first lady in the theatrical world when Lady Bell had been 
in a box at the play. 

But the girl was taken with the actress, as well as tempted 
to close with the first offer of shelter and support, and there 
was a spice of adventure in the offer dear to the girlish 
heart. 

“If you will let me stay with you over your first halt,” 
Lady Bell suggested a compromise, hesitatingly, “I shall 
indeed be glad of the rest, and we could see how we — how I 
shall suit.” 

“Exactly,” agreed the actress, cordially; “ and what am 
I to call my young friend ? ” 

“Arabella Barlowe,” replied Lady Bell, hastily supplying 
only her first and middle names. 

“Very well. Miss Barlowe, then will you be so obliging 
as to take little Henry from me, till I stretch my arms.” 

Lady Bell complied with the request, but, unaccustomed to 
the office she had undertaken, she held the child in a con- 
strained position, and he immediately set up a cry. 

Mr. Siddons shook his head meaningly, as if to signify his 


LADY BELL. 


114 

aiiticii»ation of the failure of the scheme, and to add the 
reproachful reminder, ‘‘I told you to have nothing to do 
with her, yet here you’ve gone and engaged her as a com- 
panion, without a character from her former mistress, on the 
shortest acquaintance, and that in very doubtful circumstances 
where the girl is concerned. Was there ever such rashness, 
or wrongheadedness heard of? What would become of you, 
with all your talents, if I were not here to direct them and 
look after you ? You know how much the success of such an 
actress as you are, depends nowadays on respectability, and 
how an undesirable connection may do us irreparable injury. 
Yet here you go, and will take no telling. And the white- 
faced, stuck-up thing is going to be useless into the bargain.” 

But Mrs. Siddons showed no annoyance or regret while 
she resumed her charge, turning aside Lady Bell’s discom- 
fiture with a well-bred, good-tempered observation, ‘‘When 
you have little ones of your own. Miss Barlowe, you will 
know better how to guide them. I see that you have no 
little brothers or sisters.” 

“ Neither big nor little,” admitted Lady Bell ; “I was the 
only child in the house of a grand-aunt.” 

“Poor child! poor, old-fashioned, solitary little one,” 
lamented the older woman, with sincere pity, thinking of her 
own homely, much interested father and mother, and the 
many-childed sociality which had belonged to the strolling 
players’ troop. 

At the same time Mrs. Siddons was disposed to proceed to 
something more profitable than the indulgence of sensibility. 
She started a question of costume, and there she found Lady 
Bell capable and alert, Mrs. Siddons did not doubt in prac- 
tice as well as theory, for every well-brought-up young lady 
was then fairly versed in the mysteries, not merely of clothes, 
but of their making. 

As Ladv Bell conversed with animation and skill on the 


LIFE WITH THE PLAYERS. 


15 


difficulties of sack-backs, girdles, neglighs, Mrs. Siddons took 
her little revenge, and nodded triumphantly to her husband. 
Perhaps she had a sense of one of her weak points as an 
actress, that She dressed often badly, though in some degree 
artistically. She might have a consciousness that it would 
be better for her if she could always command the correct 
judgment, delicate taste, and clever fingers of “a real 
lady.” 

The last stage in the journey of the little party brought 
them to the town of Thorpe, where Mrs. Siddons was to 
attend a rehearsal and act the same night, and where private 
lodgings, apart from the theatrical properties — daggers, 
smeared with red paint, sheet-tin for thunder— were secured, 
as the first lady’s engagement was to last for a week. 

Miss Barlowe was not wanted at the rehearsal, nor, as 
Mrs. Siddons decided, after a moment’s thought, to attend at 
the theatre at all. 

But, as a resident in the actress’s family, the girl had a 
pass to see the play, in her travelling dress, from a private 
box. She accepted the privilege reluctantly, out of com- 
pliment to her patroness (how proprieties were reversed!), 
and under the somewhat pompous escort of Mr. Siddons. The 
great o1)ject which Lady Bell proposed to herself was to be as 
little seen as possible, in her shady nook of the dark little 
theatre, and to get away from its crowd as quickly as she 
could. It was not that she feared detection much, for she 
had never been within many miles (stronger words in those 
days) of the town of Thorpe, and was not acquainted with 
anybody in its neighbourhood ; but she was ashamed of her 
situation. 

Lady Bell began by admiring Mrs. Siddons’s wonderful 
beauty, and by idly following the story behind the footlights. 
Before long Lady Bell had forgotten who she was and where 
she was. She had forgotten Mrs. Siddons as the lady whom 


LADY BELL. 




,^ady Bell had first seen sitting in a diiffie cloak, breakfasting 
in an inn kitchen, who was like, but even more beautiful, 
than Mrs. Sundon, and whose likeness to Mrs. Sundon had 
something to do with the readiness with which Lady Bell had 
agreed to serve for a time as a waiting gentlewoman. She 
had forgotten her fellow- auditors, with whom, in the utmost 
community of feeling, she was straining her eyes, clasping 
her hands, weeping her heart out. 

The girl was transported by the magic of genius into a 
world of which she had never heard or dreamt — a world 
which penetrated through, and reached far beyond her world 
of high life — the only world she had known, or cared to 
know. 

Lady Bell left the theatre entranced, and fascinated. She 
was resigned, content to be handmaid to a goddess, to spend 
her mornings helping to pull up and down, re-fashion and 
re-arrange Mrs. Siddons’s trappings, since in the evenings she 
was brought into thrilling, shuddering contact with the love, 
rage, grief, and despair of Isabella, Zara, Mrs. Beverley, Jane 
Shore, nay, caused to experience their struggles and despair, 
and to make them her own. Such was the wonderful effect 
upon Lady Bell of Mrs. Siddons’s seizure of every character — 
its rich, varied utterance, its very looks, attitudes, and ges- 
tures, to which the beautiful face, with its speaking eyes, the 
fine figure, with its rounded, supple arms, alike lent them- 
selves, willing slaves to the soul’s Catholicism. 

The sight was an education worth a state of servitude to 
the young girl. The very range of characters which Mrs. 
Siddons at that time played, brought them within Lady Bell’s 
comprehension, whereas the higher range of the Shake- 
spearean characters could only have struck such a girl in her 
sixteenth year, blind and dumb with amazement and awe. 

There could not have been a broader contrast between the 
sad monotony and brooding — almost inane hostility of Lady 


LIFE WITH THE PLAYERS. 


II7 

Bell’s life at St. Bevis’s and Trevor Court, and this introduc- 
tion to the lava flow of human passion. 

When Lady Bell recalled the former passages in her life, 
and put them side by side with this, she felt tempted to hug 
herself on the change, and to wonder with girlish levity 
and malice what Mrs. Kitty, Squire Trevor, and Mrs. Walsh 
would say, if they saw her thus full of interest and joy in 
existence. 

From the theatre Lady Bell was wont to return home with 
Mrs. Siddons ; and, while Lady Bell was still in an ecstasy, 
to witness what was a greater trial to the preservation of an 
illusion than any proximity to spangles and lacquer could 
have proved. 

The great actress refreshed herself after her exertions, by 
eating a hearty supper of beefsteak-pie and porter, which she 
enlivened with some rather heavy, if feminine enough 
humour ; for the tragic muse had a tendency to be ponderous 
— call it grandiose, even in her womanly fun. 

Mr. Siddons criticized the performance, to which he could 
only hold the candle, and cumbered with small directions for 
her next part, the wife whose gifts he believed he could 
measure, in proportion as he could reckon their commercial 
value. 

It is saying something for young Lady Bell that she came 
triumphantly through the ordeal. Youth is irreverent, and 

quality” is supercilious, yet Lady Bell was able to reverse 
the proverb of the hero and his valet. She was so much of 
the heroine herself in playing the waiting-maid, that she still 
saw a heroine in her mistress. 

Lady Bell was selling her birthright, and considering it 
well sold in return for beholding the creations of a woman 
of genius. 

But the woman of genius, a compound of glorious imagina- 
tion and shrewd calculation, of truth of heart and some 


LADY BELL. 


Il8 

worldly-mindedness, was not so sure of her share of the 
bargain. 

Let it be remembered that these days were before Mrs. 
Siddons’s great success, rather after her sore defeat, when she 
had been driven from the London boards in artistic disgrace, 
and was drudging unremittingly to retrieve her mistake and 
maintain her little family by playing at provincial theatres 
and in country towns. 

Mrs. Siddons found that any pursuit (having over-leapt 
such towns as Thorpe, to grope wildly for Lady Bell in 
London) which Miss Barlowe’s flight might have occasioned, 
was not likely to reach the fugitive, while the self-constituted 
guardian did not see, or seeing, could not understand the 
guarded advertisements in the newspapers. 

Mrs. Siddons began to think her young companion a 
serious source of responsibility, for which there was not suf- 
ficient recompense in Lady Bell’s conscious assistance in 
dress, and unconscious lessons in style. And this in spite of 
what happened one day, when Lady Bell being present as 
Mrs. Siddons was trying on a crown of pasteboard and gold- 
beater’s leaf, to wear in the character of Boxalana, the girl 
startled the actress by objecting inadvertently, “ the Queen 
wore a coronet at her Birthday, not a high-peaked thing like 
that.” 

It was true that as Mrs. Siddons, when she was not on the 
stage, held herself aloof from her theatrical companions, and 
was the most domestic of public women, she could keep “a 
genteel, modest young female ” in her household from many 
doubtful and dangerous associations. But, since this young 
lady had no view of going on the stage, Mrs. Siddons judged 
rightly that, in the interests of all parties, there was no reason 
why Miss Barlowe should continue to undergo any exposure 
to the evils attendant on a theatrical connection. The 
supervision necessary to ward off such evils became irk- 


LIFE WITH THE PLAYERS. 


II9 

some wlien prolonged, and tlie game was not worth the 
candle. 

The scruples were brought to a crisis by an accident. Lady 
Bell had foolishly carried her note-book in her pocket, and 
got the pocket picked when she was returning one night from 
the representation of Venice Preserved, believing that she 
was walking and talking with Venetian and princely con- 
spirators in halls painted by Bellini and Titian, instead of 
among the rabble of a little bill-stuck lane in an English 
country town. 

Mrs. Siddons did not relish this proof of the power of her 
art ; she looked a little indignant and disgusted. It might 
be her note-book which Miss Barlowe would lose next, only 
Mrs. Siddons always kept that safe in her own pocket or her 
husband’s. 

Mrs. Siddons’s gravity at the casualty outlasted Lady Bell’s 
mercurial dismay, for the young lady soon proceeded to com- 
fort herself more frankly than cunningly, with the considera- 
tion, ‘‘It was but two five-pound notes after all, and as I 
have lately provided myself with two suits, and you pay my 
travelling expenses, I shan’t want it at present.” 

The next day Mrs. Siddons set about trying among the 
acquaintances who gathered round her at every stoppage in 
her tour, whether she could not procure another situation for 
Miss Barlowe. The agreeable and obliging young lady was 
only Mrs. Siddons’s compagnon de voyage, and would be no 
longer wanted by the actress when she should settle down for 
the winter in her home at Bath. 

Mrs. Siddons was fortunate in hearing at once of something 
moderately suitable, and directly communicated her doings 
and their success to Lady Bell. 

“My dear Miss Barlowe, you know I should like to have 
you with me always,” she broke the matter, “ but what can I 
do ? I am a poor woman, working hard for my family, and 


120 


LADY BELL. 


I must think of their interest before my own inclinations, 
or even those of my friends.” 

Lady Bell, in her brief season of security (for after the first 
few days, she had confided absolutely in Mrs. Siddons), and 
of mental enlargement and delight, had not looked farther 
than the day. She was so astounded and heart-stricken by the 
tidings of her dismissal, that her pride was in abeyance for 
a moment. “Are you going to send me away from you, 
madam ? ” she asked, her eyes widening, her pouting lips 
drooping with distress and affright. “ Oh ! is not this too 
great a punishment for letting my money be stole ? ” 

‘‘My dear Miss Barlowe,” repeated Mrs. Siddons in 
remonstrance, “you make a great mistake. I have no 
right to punish your carelessness in letting your money go. 
I am planning for your good. Even if it were not so,” she 
added immediately, with the candour which was always in 
excess of her conciliatory qualities, “ I have no room for you, 
or any call for a companion at Bath. I own, with pleasure, 
that I have already got fond of you, but you must see, un- 
happily, it is a fondness which I cannot afford to indulge, 
when I have my children to think of, in the first place,” and 
she turned and caressed her little Henry. 

Mrs. Siddons urged the plea as if it admitted of no con- 
tradiction. She urged the same plea many a time from 
youth to age, in trampling down generosity, and even justice, 
till the very world that worshipped her genius, was outraged 
by her family selfishness. In like manner, women urge it 
still, without doubt or stay, a,s if family selfishness becomes a 
divine right in the breasts of mothers. 

By this time Lady BeU had recovered herself. “Very 
weU, madam, it is a question for you to decide,” she said, 
steadying Jier mobile face and trembling voice, by a force 
put upon them, which obtained Mrs. Siddons’s approbation. 
She could almost have wished that Miss Barlowe had gone 


LIFE WITH THE PLAYERS. 


21 


on tlie boards, but tben, though she had emitted no other 
spark of histrionic ability, she might have grown, what witli 
her fresher, more tender youth, the mystery of her con- 
cealed rank, and her unmistakable air of distinction, a 
dangerous rival. The woman who know her own genius 
was too great to be morbidly vain and jealous, but she had 
extortionate children. 


6 


OHAPTEE XYI. 


OOMPAmON TO MISS KINGSOOTE. 

I^ILL you be so good as to tell me tbe arrangements wbich 
^ yon have made for me ? ” requested Lady Bell, remem- 
bering that as her money was lost, it was out of her power 
to undo these arrangements. 

With all my heart, my dear,” replied Mrs. Siddons 
cordially. She was thankful to have discharged an un- 
gracious task, though she had not for a moment been 
uncertain of her obligation, so that her serenity had only 
been slightly ruffled. “The lady who wishes a companion 
at so vastly opportune a moment, that we ought to be grate- 
ful for the chance, and I see that you have the sense to 
regard it in that light, is Miss Kingscote, of Nutfield, three 
miles from here. She had come in to see the play on Friday 
night, and spoke of the opening to Mrs. Bunbury, who men- 
tioned it to me.” 

“ Do you know an^dhing more? ” asked Lady Bell, feign- 
ing curiosity to hide how dispirited she was. 

“ Yes, sure ; I have made every inquiry on your account,” 
said Mrs. Siddons readily. “I took the opportunity to ride 
out to Nutfield when you were engaged with the trimming of 
the pink train, yesterday. It is a nice sort of country place, 
though I must explain that the family were thrown back in 
the world by the villainy of an uncle, and are only working 


COMPANION TO MISS KINGSCOTE. 


123 


their way forward again, which is greatly to their credit. I 
thought it better that you should not know of the proposal 
till it was all settled, which it is, with your consent.” 

“I should like to hear what my duties will be.” 

“Ay, and what your salary will be ; don’t forget that, and 
don’t begin blushing at the name, child, not though it were 
‘ wages.’ It is easy to see that you have not been so 
hardened as I. But ‘ what’s in a name,’ especially when 
the price of our hire is for the benefit of the helpless creatures 
dearest to us? Oh, I forget. Miss Barlowe, you are not 
sixteen, and still a spinster ; indeed I don’t recommend early 
marriages, and you will have plenty opportunities yet to 
change your name. But a married woman is apt to measure 
her neighbour’s obligations by her own.” 

“Is there only one Miss Kingscote?” interposed Lady 
BeU. 

“Yes, sure, and I should say she is a good round dozen of 
years your senior. She stays out at Nutfield with a bachelor 
brother, who is half a dozen years younger than she is ; in 
short, who stands between her and you in point of age. I 
wish the difference had been the other way.” 

“ Why, madam? ” demanded Lady Bell, like a little Turk. 

“You need not look affronted.” Mrs. Siddons did not 
mind much having given the affront. “Try for your own 
sake. Miss Barlowe, and not be so thin-skinned; however, 
neither that defect, nor Mr. Charles Kingscote’s twenty- 
two years can be mended in a day. I told you that the 
viUainy of an uncle had nearly undone this generation at 
Nutfield, just as it happens in the plays ; however, this 
man’s waste and fraud were discovered before it was too 
late. The Kingscotes have just been able to keep their 
place, which their friends have been nursing back to pro- 
sperity till the young man grew up. He is only waiting at 
home for a pair of colours, which he is certain to get in 


124 


LADY BELL. 


these war times, so that you may not be long troubled with 
him. An idle young man is a great trouble and snare. A'ou 
see I think it right to warn you, Miss Barlowe ” — Mrs. Sid- 
dons cleared her conscience — “ before sending you to this 
situation.” 

“Mr. Charles Kingscote will not keep me back,” asserted 
Lady Bell, crossing her hands with an almost comical, 
youthful arrogance in her attitude, which expressed, “I 
shall put the young bumpkin in his proper place and keep 
him there, trust me for that.” What she said in words was, 
“ But you have not told me my duties.” 

“ Nor your salary ; I am coming to them. However, I must 
state to you in fairness. Miss Barlowe, I also warned Miss 
Kingscote that her proposed companion was a very genteel, 
pretty young girl.” 

“I am much obliged to you, madam,” acknowledged 
Lady Bell in an accent of anything save obligation. 

“ But she would not be warned any more than yourself,” 
protested Mrs. Siddons bluntly, “ for the woman is a born 
idiot, though I don’t mean that you are similarly afflicted,” 
she broke off, laughing ; “at the same time she is very good- 
natured, is this Miss Kingscote, as I hear. It need not 
be a harder task than another for you to have a little patience 
with her, and behave with reserve and prudence, as I do not 
doubt you will, to the brother.” 

“ Madam, I am not going to be a companien to the brother,” 
objected Lady Bell, with solemn impatience ; “ what am I to ' 
do for the lady ? ” 

“You are to teach her all your tambour and knotting 
stitches, work up her mess of ‘ pretty work, ’ as she calls it, 
help her with her plain work and housekeeping, walk with 
her, and be company for her in the evening, since she is lone- 
some when her brother is abroad. She does not feel dull 
in the country during the summer, because since the family 


COMPANION TO MISS KINGSCOTE. 1 25 

fell in the world, they have been in the habit of giving 
quarters to friends and letting the spare rooms in their house ; 
but these are only wanted for the long days and the fine 
weather, and Miss Ehngscote cannot ‘ a-bear ’ the thought 
of a winter aU alone with Master Charles, out at Nutfield. 
The salary is a guinea a month, with board and washing 
provided. I can tell you many a duchess does not give 
her children’s governess a third more, but I would not 
take a shilling less for you. Will you engage, Miss Bar- 
lowe?” 

“I will, madam, till I can make a better of it,” answered 
Lady Bell not very meekly. 

Mrs. Siddons did not censure her young friend’s peevishness 
and ambition ; on the contrary, she told Lady Bell seriously 
that it was the first duty of every well-disposed, sensible 
young woman, to do what she could to better her condition 
in the world, and oven to prove a prop and ladder by which 
those belonging to her might stay themselves, and climb to a 
higher estate. 

Lady Bell was passed on to Nutfield without delay. Her 
dignity was put perforce in her pocket, since she travelled 
neither by berlin, nor landau, not even by a yellow post- 
chaise, but by a convenient waggon. 

The short ride carried Lady Bell through an undulating 
country, the abounding wood and water of which must have 
rendered it, in the season, an Arcadia to the lovers of nature 
of the period, who were neither more nor less than landscape 
gardeners. 

In spite of Miss Kingscote’s dislike to being out at Nut- 
field without the solace and sympathy of another ‘‘female ” 
of her rank, to share her dearth of activity, and her “nerves 
and twitters ” in winter, the neighbourhood was not lonely 
or thinly peopled. There was even evidence of the rising 
appreciation of its Arcadian character. 


126 


'.ADY BELL. 


Not only was the adjacent country town decidedly aristo- 
cratic in its buildings, there were one or two attempts in its 
suburbs at fancy cottages and lodges — gothic and sylvan, — 
with grounds in keeping, modest modifications of renowned 
Strawberry Hill. To these the townspeople and denizens of 
greater towns, sometimes even of London itself, retired, and 
came, on occasions, to enjoy rural felicity and life in villi- 
giatura, when they recorded innocently, to their poetic and 
philosophic credit, that they were, of their own free will, 
burying themselves for months at a time in the depth of 
the country, and the romantic solitude of the wilds. 

But Nutfield was a house of a different description. It 
was an old grey manor house, limited in extent, though its 
space was yet too great for either the needs or the means of 
its well-descended owners. They were glad to turn its 
vacant rooms to profit, by converting them into country 
lodgings, without abating a jot of their claims to gentility. 

Nutfield had never been a place of the same extent as 
Trevor Court and St. Bevis’s, and it had shared to some 
degree the fate of its proprietors in being reduced very nearly 
to the rough, uncared-for plight of a farmhouse. But the 
solidity of the walls and a certain tenacity as well as stout- 
ness in the human constitution, had served Nutfield and the 
Kingscotes alike in good stead. 

Nutfield was marked by a quaint massiveness in its original 
mullioned windows, which caused the light to dwindle to 
darkness visible within doors, and in its heavy cross-beams 
that looked as if they were about to fall and crush the 
occupants. Mullions and cross-beams were not altogether 
without their pleasantness, and suited the primitive situation 
of the house in the middle of an orchard, where the mossy 
arms of the old fruit-trees stretched so close to the house, 
that they farther darkened it, and flung their shifting 
shadows on the floors. 


COMPANION TO MISS KINGSCOTE. 


127 


Within doors, the old ehony-hlack furniture, frayed drugget 
and matting, with some remnants of faded woollen tapestry, 
and a smoked black picture or two framed in the panels, 
promised at least peaceful stability, friendly familiarity and 
simple ease and comfort. The aspect of the place contrasted 
on the whole favourably with the ghastly bareness of St. 
Bevis’s, and the painful pretence at home, which was no home, 
of Trevor Court. 

Miss Kingscote had not the charm which, but for its being 
the Edngscotes’ ancestral house, she herself could never have 
found in Nutfield. 

Miss Kingscote was a round dumpy woman, with a large 
flat face, like a flat surface of any kind catching gleams and 
reflections from surrounding objects, but incapable of indivi- 
dual lights and shadows. Her sprigged linen gown and 
round cap of her own knitting, made her figure look still 
more unshapely, and her face more like a shallow saucer. 
She was awkward to uncouthness, as she nodded to refined 
Lady Bell. 

It was clear before Miss Kingscote opened her mouth, that 
the woman whom the loyalty or the caprice of the county 
gentry chose to retain, nay, to reinstate in their ranks, was 
simply hopeless in the extreme rusticity which had been her 
early heritage from neglect and dishonesty. 

‘‘I’m glad to see you, miss,” she said to Lady Bell, pro- 
ceeding in grossly illiterate language, which first shocked, 
then tickled the delicate ears that listened to it. “You’re a 
coming to a dull part, I would have you to know that, and 
no mistake; you see ‘I never was known to lie,’ no more 
than the man as told the funny story of the Earn of Derby- 
shire. But to be content and hearty, them are the ways to 
make Nutfield and life cheerier. I mean to try ’em, miss, I 
do, if so be you’ll be good enough to lend me a hand.” 

AVithal there was a foolish importance and a simpering 


128 


LADY BELL. 


affectation about Miss Kingscote which bore out Mrs. 
Siddons’s verdict on the country lady’s understanding. But 
no doubt she was good-natured, only her good-nature took, 
at first, a vexatious form. 

Lady Bell was labouring to preserve her incognito, to 
shape her own bearing and tones to the calling which she 
had adopted. But what was she to do when Miss Kingscote 
began by loading her hired companion with all the honour 
and attention which she could pay Lady Bell, and by insisting 
on waiting upon Lady Bell instead of consenting to be waited 
upon by her ? 

This unexpected and dangerous intuition of Miss Kings- 
cote’ s, thoroughly disconcerted Lady Bell, and might have 
brought the deceiver to the brink of detection, had not the 
sense of awe with which she had inadvertently impressed her 
employer speedily worn off the smooth plane. Miss Kings- 
cote quickly drifted back, to Lady Bell’s relief, into her 
normal condition of an easy-going communicative simple- 
ton. 

Within an hour. Lady Bell heard that the Kingscotes had 
been no small drink in England a mort of years before, as 
early as King Arthur’s time or thereabouts — when they 
would have thought neither Clifford nor Talbot of their 
brewst. What a proper young man Master Charles was,' 
and how all the girls were pulling caps for him. How well 
Miss Kingscote had looked when she walked into Lumley at 
Assize time, in her pea-green tabinet petticoat and cherry- 
coloured gown. 

There were no shady hollows, not to say dark gulfs, in 
Miss Kingscote’s nature and history, notwithstanding that 
the latter had not been without its romantic reverses. Lady 
Bell was bidden inspect them from end to end, the very first 
day. She was made the recipient in full of the narrative of 
Uncle Mat’s worst iniquities. She heard how the Kingscotes 


COMPANION TO MISS KINGSCOTE. 


129 


had been reduced within Miss Kingscote’s recollection, to the 
plainest of clothing and coarsest of fare. 

“ And I was not dead beat, or as heavy as a Dutchwoman 
in those days neither, miss,’’ laughed Miss Kingscote with 
her horse laugh. ‘‘Lud! ho, it is the man or woman as is 
the jewel. I was called a spirity strapping lass by them as 
saw me then, and never knew I was a lady.” 

Lady Bell had stared, had repressed an inclination to titter, 
had taken another view of the case, and given way, in spite 
of every effort, to a dreary girlish sense of self-abandonment, 
and of being inevitably swamped in this overflow of homely 
folly. What a companion after the great actress ! 

Lady Bell was fain to prick her ears at the sound of an 
approaching light firm footstep, and decently cultivated 
ringing voice. 

“Are you there. Deb?” called the voice unceremoniously. 
“I suppose you han’t got your serving and talking commo- 
dity yet, as I don’t sight any traces of her. Deb, come out 
this minute, and look at my partridges.” 

“ Lawk-a-daisy, there’s brother from his shooting, and 
I’ve forgot to have a toast and tankard ready for him,” 
exclaimed Miss Kingscote, ambling out of the parlour. 


X 


CHAPTEE XYn. 


MASTER CHARLES. 

^J'HEEE was a whispered colloquy outside the door, suc- 
ceeded by the entrance of a frank, open-faced young 
fellow, looking very c.omely in his green coat, and yet 
retaining a comical likeness to Miss Kingscote. 

The gentleman was coming up freely to Lady Bell, pre- 
pared to regard her as an acquisition, in the profits of which 
he was entitled to a share. 

He was not going to address her with the formal I have 
the honour,” or “ Your servant,” but with a friendly jocular 
“Good morning to you, Miss Barlowe, now that you have 
come to hand. Don’t let my sister and you put out your 
bright eyes with fine stitching,” when he, too, was induced 
to reverse the usual order of greeting to a companion, though 
making his amendment on more intelligent principles than 
those which had influenced Miss Kingscote. 

Instead of speaking at all, he gave Lady Bell an amazed 
confused bow in return for her perfectly calm curtsey, and 
turned aside muttering to himself, “By George, she is a 
highflyer, and no mistake, she must be a tragedy queen 
herself.” 

Miss Kingscote was senselessly elated by the manner in 
which her companion struck Master Charles. “ Don’t you go 
for to contradict me again,” said his sister, with a meaning 


MASTER CHARLES. 1 3 1 

chuckle, shaking her fat finger at the lad ; “mum’s the word, 
but we’ve all heard tell of pearls before swine.” 

Lady Bell, in spite of her former heroics, was rather 
pleased to see in the dire dearth of sympathy which threatened 
to prevail in other quarters at Nutfield, that Master Charles, 
as his sister generally styled him, even in addressing him 
with simple honour and doting fondness, was personable and 
companionable. 

But he was no such likely mate for Lady Bell, even had she 
been free, that she should bo carried oif her feet by his home- 
spun attractions. These had not been cultivated beyond 
the point to which their natural manliness and intelligence 
had been brought by the parson of the parish, who had 
volunteered to act as young Kingscote of Nutfield’ s governor, 
and by the country town’s fencing and dancing master, who 
had undertaken to convey to the young fellow a version of . 
the deportment and manners of a gentleman. But Lady 
Bell had known fine gentlemen. 

Lady Bell had been determined on keeping Master Charles 
at a distance. She owed it to the sedateness with which 
she was bound to behave, and to her knowledge of the real 
difference of their rank. So she began by being very quiet 
and reserved, and by resisting the faint and finally bashful 
advances of the master of the house. 

But circumstances were tremendously against Lady Bell. 

Nutfield was a country house where winter was approach- 
ing. Miss Kingscote was a garrulous rustic, from whom 
neither edification nor enlivenment, except of one kind, could 
be expected. 

Master Charles was a gentleman, although of the plainer 
sort, prepossessing in look and speech, not without parts, 
information, and spirit, of an age not exceeding twenty-two. 

Lady Bell was guileless, ingenuous as far as she dared 
to be ingenuous, naturally animated and enterprising, trained 


132 LADY BELL. 

in a school of refinement and finish, and delicately hand- 
some. 

Lady Bell was unable to gainsay Master Charles in making 
friends with him, so far as allowing him to be on cordial 
terms with her. Soon he brought her trophies from the 
game preserves and hunting fi.eld. He consulted her on his 
purchases in the little town. 

“Look here. Miss Barlowe,” he would say, “my tailor 
tells me this brocade, of which I have a pattern for a waist- 
coat, was brought right from France on an order of Sir 
Peregrine Gust’s. Do you afiPect it? lend me your taste.” 

He told her of his engagements, and gave her a full account 
of his sayings and doings, and those of his friends. “ I was at 
Colonel Barnard’s last night,” he would mention. “We had 
games, and the ladies proposed riddles. I wish my plaguey 
memory had retained them for the benefit of Deb and you. 
Miss Barlowe. What do you think? Miss Polly, the 
colonel’s daughter, stood up and danced a jig first-rate with 
her brother the sailor.” 

He confessed that he had been longing desperately for his 
commission, but he was not so impatient now that Miss 
Barlowe had kindly consented to bear his sister company. 
They formed quite a little colony at home, who could play 
cribbage, piquet, or Pope Joan, of an evening, and be inde- 
pendent of the grnat world without — not that he was not 
going where glory waited him, that he did not mean to earn 
his right to sit down like an old man by his modest fire-side. 

Lady Bell, though she had sufficient caution to keep her 
narratives within bounds, repaid Master Charles’s confidences 
by fine stories out of her short life with the players, out of 
the plays she had seen acted, and the few books which she 
had read. 

She took his advice seriously on the feather trimmings which 
she was manufacturing for Miss Kingscote’s fui’belows, whether 


MASTER CHARLES. 


133 


tlie turkeys’ feathers did not ‘‘come in vastly pretty as a 
silver grey after the golden brown of the pheasants’ 
feathers ? ” 

With a little pressing she sang to him, as an appropriate 
echo of his military aspirations, “ Over the hills and far 
away;” she suffered him to escort her — to he sure Miss 
Kmgscote was generally with her — when he overtook her on 
these country roads, which, in the shortening winter days, 
were, not only barely surmountable in their mud and mire, 
but which were frequently forbidden to unattended women 
in the end of the last century. 

In short. Master Charles and Miss Barlowe were gliding 
fast into an innocent, inconsiderate, highly perilous intimacy, 
which was almost inevitable between the pair shut up to- 
gether and shut out from the world. 

Young men were scarce about Lumley, and this young 
man was popular among the neighbours who had rescued 
hinj. Master Charles was freely welcome, where Miss 
Kingscote was merely tolerated and laughed at, in most of 
the country houses, and in the best town houses of Lumley. 
He could go a-visiting, if he chose, four evenings out of the 
seven. 

Naturally it was otherwise with Miss Kingscote’s com^ 
panion. 

But all at once Lady Bell had her eyes opened to the pre- 
cipice on the edge of which she was unwarily walking. 

In the first place Miss Kingscote’s manner changed. Her 
boisterous good humour and rough hospitality gave way to 
a halting glumness and an absolute rudeness. Her easiness 
grew uneasy, and testified itself in a kind of alarmed, re- 
proachful indulgence to the follies of mankind, as distinct 
from, and preyed upon by, those of womankind. 

There were “creeturs,” Miss Kingscote declared emphatic- 
ally, who stole into honourable houses and plotted against 


134 


LADY BELL. 


their credit. Miss Kingscote seemed to become morbidly 
concerned with these ‘‘creeturs,” vain peacocks, serpents in 
disguise, who aimed at occupying the seats of their betters, 
but would never reach those seats, instead would ^‘sup” 
sorrow and disgrace, as the just punishment of their scan- 
dalous lightness of head and unwarrantable ambition. 

“But you would never be such a pagan. Miss,” Miss 
Kingscote would protest relentingly, not without a warn- 
ing in the relenting, “ you’ve been taken in and had 
♦he warmest corner here, as if you had been my sister, 
indeed — though, Lud ! no sister of mine — a Kingscote of 
Nutfield, would have gone into service, rather starve, or 
live on the hards, as I have lived many and many’s the 
day.” 

“I don’t know what you mean. Miss Kingscote,” Lady 
Bell defended herself, too scornful in her surprise to be even 
sorely displeased. “I think the best of us may go into 
service, and that the only truly demeaning service is what 
we cannot honestly perform. Yes, you have been very kind 
to me, but I do not know what you mean.” 

“ You wouldn’t be so horn mad,” persisted Miss Kingscote, 
looking Lady Bell hard in the face, “ as to force me to give 
j^ou the back of the door. Miss Barlowe, for misbehaviour, 
with the small chance it would give of a rise in the world ? 
As for them boobies of men,” added Miss Kingscote, “ they 
are good for nought save to breed strife. They’re as blind 
as bats to their own goods, and as wild as tigerses when 
they’re crossed for their goods, and after their toys is broke, 
‘ trample these toys under foot’ is the order of the day.” 

“ You’re very hard on the men,” said Lady Bell, “ but I 
have nothing to do to defend them.” 

“In course. Master Charles is among the best of his sort,” 
explitined Miss Kingscote, striving to speak loftily in her 
turn. “He’ll think better on it. He’ll come out at the 


MASTER CHARLES. 


35 


head of the cart yet, and conduct himself conformable, not 
disappointing none of his friends and well-wishers. He’ll 
cut a dash, and bring home a flag or two, or a gun, like his 
forefathers did — his and mines. He’ll wait till then and mate 
with his equal.” 

'‘With all my heart. Miss Kingscote,” replied Lady Bell, 
and then she remonstrated, “ but good gracious ! why should 
I have to come out at the foot of the cart because he is to 
leap from the head ? ” 

Miss Kingscote had no answer to that indignant demand 
save a sulky “You know best, miss ; it lies with you. I 
reckon your lot will be of your own choosing.” 

Lady Bell could have laughed bitterly ; she could have 
packed up the small wardrobe which she had gathered before 
her purse was stolen, and seen her last of Nutfield and the 
Kingscotes. 

But here was no laughing naatter, and although it had not 
come to this that Lady Bell Trevor, the forlorn young wife of 
Trevor of Trevor Court, had entered into a rivalry, which 
would have been tenfold base on her part, with Miss Polly 
Barnard and Miss Ironside, the daughter of the mayor of 
Lumley, for the favour of so simple a country gentleman. 
Still she could ill dispense with the shelter of that gentle- 
man’s roof and the countenance of his sister. 

Neither was Lady Bell’s conscience quite clear. Her 
prudence — the slender prudence of sixteen — had slept, and 
the result threatened to be altogether disastrous. 

Master Charles was not satisfled with the amount of friend- 
ship which Lady Bell had vouchsafed to him. He was press- 
ing for more. His sister’s clumsy opposition, which rendered 
him surly to her, only made him more eager, open, and osten- 
tatious in his approaches. 

Lady Bell realised with a throb of apprehension that this 
task of keeping Master Charles in order, was by no means 


LADY BELL. 


136 

tlie easy task wkicli she had conceitedly conceived "before- 
hand, and set for herself without doubt or fear. 

She began to tremble at Master Charles’s youthful keenness, 
confidence, and daring. He snatched her hand and kissed it 
before Miss Kingscote’s face. He stole Miss Barlowe’s hand- 
kerchief behind Miss Kingscote’s back and kept it. Triflea 
light as air these liberties were, but Lady Bell could have 
cried over them with shame and vexation. 

She commenced to experience the weakness of wrong- 
doing in trying to summon up her dignity to repulse the 
assailant. Though desertion of duty and deceit in a certain 
measure, were not called by such hard names in Lady Bell’s 
day, and though those practices had been resorted to by her, 
half in ignorance, yet she fell back on accusing herself, and 
was not without a horrified intuition that the tendency of 
her conduct was to act like a canker in corroding her 
moral nature. 


‘OHAPTEE XYEH. 


liCKS* SAS.IiO W Jj« 

ly^SS IQN’Q-SCOTE,” said Lady Bell very soberly and 
sadly, tbe next time that sbe sat netting a cherry net by 
the firelight, while her companion was dozing at her side. 
Neither of them had to fear interruption, since Master 
Charles was gone for that day and the next, to be present 
at an inspection of the county fencibles. 

“ What is your will, miss ? returned Miss Kingscote 
curtly, not propitiated by having her sleep broken in upon. 

“I have to say to you, that I shall take it as a favour 
if you will call me Mrs. Barlowe in future. Indeed, madam, 
I have, and had long before I came here, a right to the 
superior title, which I take blame to myself for not having 
confided to you. But I am one of those unfortunate crea- 
tures who, with such a ring as this ” — and Lady Bell held 
up the third finger of her left hand, on which she had 
resumed the wearing of her marriage ring — “ have wed 
slavery and desolation, instead of honour and bounty.” 

Miss Kingscote had been still in sheer wonder and con- 
sternation far greater than those with which she herself had 
lately filled Lady Bell. 

“Lord ha’ mercy! You don’t go for to say it,” she 
exclaimed at last, “that you are a lost woman already, and 
you a mere chit of a girl ? WTiy did Madam Siddons take 


3S 


LADY BELL. 


me in vilely ? — tliough it might have been looked for from a 
play-actress. What company for Master Charles to have 
been tricked into ! ” 

Lady Bell sprang to her feet. 

•'‘Miss Kingscote, you are not thinking of what you are 
saying, else you would not dare to speak — you would not have 
the heart to speak such cruel words ; yes, they are cruel, 
cruel,” she cried again, and sobbed in her pain and distress. 
“Have you no pity on a poor girl’s misery, which she was 
confiding to you solely to re-assure you and guard you against 
a foolish fancy which was troubling your peace ? You have 
been poor yourself, and put upon by a wicked uncle, as 
you’ve often told me, and I thought you were good-natured 
and kind-hearted, but you are as bad to me as the rest. 
I am as good a woman as you are. Miss Kingscote. I defy 
my worst enemy to prove me otherwise. I shall, rid you of 
my presence this very night. Yes, I shall sooner face the 
howling, dark night, and go on foot to Lumley, weak girl 
that I am, than stay and receive another hour’s shelter from 
a woman who suspects me of being the basest of my kind.” 

“Hoity-toity,” muttered Miss Kingscote, fanning herself, 
in her agitation, with a bunch of peacock’s feathers, which 
she had snatched from the chimney-piece. 

“But I must free Mrs. Siddons from your aspersions,” 
said Lady Bell more calmly, “ she knew nothing of what 
1 have told you, madam ; she never sought to know. Her 
natural nobility and candour believed in me and trusted me 
from the moment that we chanced to travel together. That 
was the beginning and end of our acquaintance.” 

“Ay, like draws to like,” commented Miss Kingscote, with 
a smothered groan, for she was cowardly as well as slow, and 
Lady Bell’s combined volubility and fire swept away and 
consumed Miss Kingscote’s halting indignation. 

“I can guess,” continued Lady Bell, paying no heed to 


MRS. BARLOWE. 


39 


the interruption, ^‘that she told you as much — that she had 
not been acquainted with my friends ; that she had taken me 
on credit, and had not been disappointed in me, an orphan 
striving to earn her bread.” 

Lady Bell had raged on without interruption, till the flame 
was spent. 

‘‘What’s all this to do. Miss?” questioned Miss Kingscote. 
“Do you expect me to be mightily pleased with your queer 
story ? Bless the girl ! even if it were true, it wants looking 
into, that it do ; wait till Master Charles comes back.” 

In reality Miss Kingscote’s forces were already beginning 
to hang fire. Her dense stupidity and softness of temper, 
however goaded, were not equal to the occasion. 

“If it were true!” flounced and fumed the young delin- 
quent, who was not brought to contriteness just then, “when 
did I He to you ? As for Master Charles,” Lady Bell stamped 
her small foot, “how dare you bring a modest and honour- 
able young gentleman, so far as I know him, into such a 
discussion ?” 

“ Lud ! lud!” Miss Kingscote rose and retreated, perfectly 
in earnest in her alarm, “you mun be in a frenzy, girl, you’ll 
fright me clean out of my wits, though the maids are in the 
kitchen ; what would you have me to say or do ? I never 
thought you were such a right-down vixen, or I wouldn’t 
have had the pluck to live with you so long.” 

“I am not a vixen. Miss Kingscote,” denied Lady Bell, 
beginning to laugh excitedly, as she caught a glimpse of the 
absurdity of the altercation. “I’m only a poor oppressed 
soul, as I told you, to whom no one will afford a harbour, 
who must seek one in the grave,” and overcome by her own 
hyperbole, which she fuUy believed at the moment. Lady 
Bell sank down, sighing and moaning over her forlorn 
youth. 

“Oh, deary me!” lamented poor Miss Kingscote in 


140 


LADY BELL. 


turn, “them dismals are worser than tantrums; sure, child, 
you may have a harbour for me, though you do be a married 
woman. I have no dislike to married women, though I 
beant matched myself. When I come to think of it/’ added 
Miss Kingscote, recollecting herself, and speaking with reviv- 
ing spirit, “them’s the best news, if so be they’re right 
square, which I’ve heard for many a day ; your good man 
beant dead, be he now ?” she inquired, insinuatingly. 

“No, madam; and though he has been no good man to 
me, I dare not, as I am a sinner, wish him sent to his 
account,” said Lady Bell wearily. 

“No ! The Lord be thanked he is to the fore,” commented 
Miss Kingscote devoutly, “ and I ask your pardon, miss — 
madam, if I spoke like a crosspatch when you went to break 
your marriage to me. It struck me all of a heap, and put 
me in such a stew, my heart do go pit-a-pat still. But when 
I’ve got over it, I should not wonder though you and me 
were better friends than ever.” Miss Kingscote ended by 
smirking and nodding. 

“I am content,” submitted Lady Bell, sadly. But, if you 
please. Miss Kingscote, we’ll not speak of these unhappy 
passages in my life. I cannot give you particulars. I must 
keep my own counsel, onlj^ you had better call me Mrs. 
Barlowe, and let Master Charles know why you do so. He 
will be tender of my secret. For that matter, I’m not alone ; 
I’m not the only unhappy wife in England, who has been 
driven to fight her own battle to-day.” 

“My word, no,” assented Miss Kingscote heartily ; “I’ve 
known women as were beat within an inch of their lives by 
their brutes of men, and women as were left to shift for 
themselves, while their fine gentlemen gallanted with other 
women, and the poor wives were none to blame. What was 
I thinking on, Mrs. Barlowe, when I sought to bring home 
the guilt to a pretty babe like you ? I’U teU Master Charles 


MRS. BARLOWE. 


141 

with all the pleasure in life — mean, I’ll let him know, as it 
is but fair, to say the least, and he’ll he main sorry and rare 
kind to you.” 

Lady Bell and Miss Kingscote never supposed that the 
knowledge which they had to give, might not be an insur- 
mountable obstacle to stay Master Charles from wishing to 
create a closer, warmer friendship between him and Lady 
Bell. They never fancied that such knowledge might prove 
as tow to the hell-fire of an unlawful passion, let loose to 
devastate human nature and social life. What did good 
women know of unlawful passions even in a wild age ? 

Happily Master Charles was, in his way, and for his sex, 
as innocent and ignorant as the women. He was somewhat 
of the stuff of which Blake and Penn had been made. He 
had the faults of his day; he could, especially in his raw 
youth, ere he had been taught a lesson, and had a discipline 
appointed for him, bluster and swagger a little. He was over 
free in the drinking and betting, and even the brawling and 
fighting, which were then held manly. 

But he could neither have dreamt nor wished that Mrs. 
Barlowe’s unhappy marriage and its suppression should prove 
the very accidents which would put her in his power, and 
bestow her on him, for their mutual ruin and misery, and all 
without much trouble or sacrifice on his part. 

He was shocked, incensed, and incredulous when he first 
heard his sister’s story. What 1 that lovely, artless, refined 
young woman a wife without the. name! — in all probability 
deluded into some clandestine connection with a miscreant 
who had abandoned her! At least she was living apart 
from her husband, and had so far disowned her marriage in 
taking service with strangers. He demanded that he should 
hear the story from Miss Barlowe’s own lips ; he would not 
believe it otherwise. 

It was a trial for Master Charles even to hint at such 


142 


LADY BELL. 


a slander to Miss Baiiowe, but he brought himself to 
do it. 

He followed Lady Bell as she carried out the crumbs from 
the breakfast-table to feed the birds in the orchard. ‘‘You 
will forgive me for evening you to such a thing,” he said, 
agitated and constrained on his own account, and ready 
to explode with resentment on hers, should the story prove 
false, as how could it be true ? 

Yet he was troubled and disturbed in spite of himself by 
her changing colour, and though she did not refuse to meet 
his searching glances, by the wistful sorrowful look with 
which she bespoke his forbearance and charity. 

“It must be a mistake. Miss Barlowe,” he urged. “ Can 
it be that you are — a wedded woman, wedded to some 
wretch who disowns or abuses his vows?” 

“ Yes, sir, I was wed six months ago,” answered Lady 
Bell faintly, hanging her head as she spoke. “I was wed 
against my will, yet I consented at last, and I must abide by 
niy consent. Do you condemn me. Master Charles ? ” 

“I, madam? I have no right either to question or con- 
demn,” pronounced the young man a little stiffly and very 
gravely. ‘ ‘ I pity you from my soul, and, as I am a gentle- 
man, you may depend upon your sorrows being sacred to 
me.” 

He spoke the truth. More than that, the pang inflicted 
by the communication acted as a process of disillusion on 
him. The deception of which Lady Bell stood convicted upon 
her own showing, the new character in which she appeared, 
robbed him of his faith in her, nipped in the bud the love 
which was born of single-hearted homage, and cured him 
by a sharp cure of his brief passion. 

The sjiell of Lady Bell’s attractions was broken for Master 
Charles. She could no longer shine in his eyes as a bright 
particular star. For a time after her confession he avoided 



“ Do you coiuleinn me, Master Cliarles V 


Page 14‘-J 





MRS. BARLaWE. 


143 


her, and was restless, cross, and unhappy in his mind, pining 
more than ever for his colours and his marching day. 

But Master Charles’s healthy nature re-asserted itself 
speedily, — the more speedily that his pursuit of Miss Barlowe 
had still been full of the idealism of an uncorrupted youthful 
manhood, of a dreamy delight in the present, and a vague 
grasp of the future. First he returned with renewed zest to 
his old interests and occupations. Then he gradually wore 
back to the original friendly footing, free now from all 
uncertainty and double meaning, on which he had been with 
Lady Bell. 

She 'witnessed the change, and was a little mystified, a 
little mortified ; but being true to herself and him, she was 
easily reconciled to it. She was not a budding coquette. 
She was not naturally weak, though girlishly weak. She 
had been more sinned against than sinning. She had not 
forgotten Lady Lucie’s lessons of religion and virtue, however 
she had swerved from them ; and that remembrance, even in 
the middle of perversity and shortsightedness, with grace given 
her, prevented her from falling. But she had even been saved 
from the temptation of lo’^ng her young squire, so that she 
could afford to be thankful that he had soon ceased to love 
her, and was willing to be no more than her friend. 


OHAPTEE XIX. 


AN OLD FRIEND. 

^HE white hoar frost which had given a fairy -like beauty 
to the old orchard trees of Nutfield had long melted 
away, and was replaced by the first powdering and fiuttering 
of green on the grey gnarled boughs. 

The birds which Lady Bell had fed, no longer came hopping 
to door and window-sill, but, independent of her bounty, and 
forgetful of past favours, broke off the acquaintance, and 
gave themselves up to satisfactory poking for worms in the 
soft earth, to energetic pecking at the first midges and green 
flies, and to the absorbing delights of pairing. 

Summer company might be anticipated to fill the spare 
rooms at Nutfield. But Miss Kingscote, though not so 
graceful and winning in her ways as Lady Bell’s feathered 
friends, was more faithful, and less carried away by the 
claims of her personal history, in the association which had 
remained unbroken since Lady Bell had communicated the 
fact of her marriage. 

Miss Kingscote made up her mind to retain Mrs. Barlowe 
as a companion, “for, Lud! I’ve growed fond of her.” 
Miss Kingscote told herself in a succession of reflections, “it 
would cost me summat to part with her. Besides, what 
would become of the wench herself, as is pure genteel and 
dandily, though she do have the smartest fingers, and the 


AN OLD FRIEND. 


145 


prettiest devices, if site were cast out into tlie world, may 
be to be driven back on the tender mercies of her villain of a 
man. I do bave a spite at them men ; except my Master 
Charles — ^he’s a good sort, as well as a pretty fellow, to make 
his sister’s heart glad, and other lasses’ hearts sad. But 
this lass she knows that she and Master Charles can’t at no 
price come together, since she’s neither a rank fool nor a 
base hussy, and he’s not an abandoned rakish rascal, God 
bless him! She’s a safe playfellow for Master Charles, as 
well as good company for me. 

“ She’ll help me in the knotted fringes for the curtains of 
them beds. She has begun covers for the spare chairs, which 
ain’t half finished, and which I could no more complete all 
alone than I could dance a minnuee. I want a hand, too, in 
the sets out when the folks staying in the house step in to 
sup with Master Charles and me ; and I am no great shakes 
at the preserving and pickling which summer do bring on 
heavy, since old nursey would never let me try, so long as 
she could have a finger in the pie. I can prank myself fine 
enough, but Master Charles he’s besotted with the last 
modes, and he lays into me to take Mrs. Barlowe’s word in 
the matter. Well, I’m not misdoubting that, wheresoever, 
and at whatsoever loss the poor thrown- away thing learnt 
it, she knows the fashions of the top company.” 

Thus Lady Bell lived on at Nutfield, and shared the 
agreeable stir which followed the first announcement for the 
season of lodgers to the house. 

‘‘It’s the mayor’s wife have sent out a messenger express 
that the rooms are wanted for a Lon’ on lady the mayor 
knows on (we only make our house free to friends and friends’ 
friends, Mrs. Barlowe), a young madam newly lain in with 
her first child, and seeking quiet and country air to recruit 
her,” was Miss Kingscote’s important tidings. 

“ Our air is as sweet as a nut,” Miss Erngscote animad- 
7 L 


LADY BELL. 


14b 

verted in her satisfaction, “ as your colour may show. When 
you came first I could compare you to nought for wanness 
but the puling white July fiower, and now you are getting 
that rosy you’ll soon match its red brother and sister.” 

Only one word of the news kept tingling in Lady Bell’s 
ears, ‘‘Lon’on!” Could this lady be high enough in rank 
to know any member of Lady Lucie’s old set ? Might the 
stranger, after they had been several weeks together, be 
induced to favour and help Lady Bell, if she revealed her 
identity and appealed to the new-comer’s benevolence? 

She knew that she could not live at Nutfield always. Nay, 
she was determined against remaining there for any length 
of time. However hazardous a farther encounter with the 
world, she would face it, rather than sink into slothful 
apathy and degeneracy, and be dragged down at last to Miss 
Kingscote’s clownish level. 

The next information was brought by Miss Kingscote 
after she had been to Lumley and seen the mayor’s 
wife. It struck more home where Lady Bell was con- 
cerned. 

“ Miu’der ! how comes it,” cried Miss Kingscote, not 
waiting to divest herself of her yellow pelisse and her hat 
tied down over her lappets, but sitting brandishing a whip, 
to the danger of Lady Bell’s eyes, on the first chair which 
Miss Kingscote could drop into after coming back to her own 
parlour, “that Nutfield should be a refuge for distressed wives? 
Sure Master Charles and me is neither husband nor wife, that 
we should draw such a lot, like honey draws flies. Our lodger 
to be, is parted from her husband too ! though they do say 
it is by her own doing. She were a great fortune,, and he 
were a grand beau, and they pulled together none so amiss 
for a time. But he ran mad for play, as the Lord deliver 
Master Charles from running, which led him into all sorts of 
evil courses.” 


AN OLD FRIEND. 1 47 

“Ah, well-a-day. And was there no remedy ? ” besought 
Lady Bell, greatly interested. 

“Ne’er a one. Bor a few weeks gone, just afore the child 
came into this weary world, when its father’s heart might 
have been tender, he clean kicked over the traces. He had 
vowed and swore Bible oaths that he would leave off play, 
more by token her fortune were none of his ; but he went and 
staked a part on’t with a Warwickshire gentleman, a known 
gambler and cheat — ^I’se warrant on his last legs, one Squire 
Godwin.” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Lady Bell again, more shrilly this 
time ; but Miss Kingscote took no notice of the peculiar 
cadence of the voice, or only attributed it to her own 
eloquence and the pathos of her story. 

“ Our madam’s man lost ; serve him right. She went and 
paid his debt, but she would have nothing more to say to 
him. She broke with him from that hour. High time when 
the last of her fine fortune would have gone like so much 
leavings to the dogs, and she and her child would have been 
drove to work or beg for a bite and sup, if they had stayed 
on with the slippery ne’er-do-well. But she must be hard in 
the head and mortal stern in the will to cut the scamp, for 
they do say she married him against the will of her friends, 
and was as dead set on him once on a day, as she is now set 
again him.” 

“Poor young madam!” lamented Lady Bell in her old- 
fashioned abstracted fashion, “ so she, also, became exposed, 
through her husband, to the inhuman selfishness of Squire 
Godwin. Can you tell me her name. Miss Elingscote ? ” 

“ Not I, for I forget to ax it, and Mrs. Ironside forgot to 
tell it. What a ninny she would think me for not minding 
her she had forgot ! But perhaps the unhapi^y lady is keep- 
ing it close, though we cannot let that be ; we cannot manage 
a bill without a name, can we now, Mrs. Barlowe ? ” 


LADY BELL. 


148 

I think we might,” Lady Bell re- assured the mistress of 
the house. 

And had you heard, tell afore of that thief of the wood, 
Squire G-odwin?” inquired Miss Kingscote, reverting to a 
point which had struck her in her companion’s speech. 

had heard of him; would that I had not,” admitted 
Lady Bell wincing. “But madam, he was not a common 
swindler and cheat — not to my knowledge. He was a 
hardened gambler, and a wickedly callous gentleman, that 
was all.” 

“I reckon it was the worser of the two, with the devil to 
pay atween them,” asserted Miss Kingscote rather severely 
for her, “I am a horn lady, I am, hut I count them rufdans 
of the green hoards and race-courses, as may yet turn out the 
light pockets of my hoy and shake ’em emptier of Nutfield 
than ever our uncle Mat shook ’em, a dratted deal worse 
than a highwayman, or a housebreaker that may he catched 
in the act, and. wear a hempen collar at Tyhurn or nigher 
hand any day.” 

“I suppose we must leave hoth spendthrifts and wicked 
uncles to their deserts,” said Lady Bell. “Why are uncles 
worse than other relations, I wonder ? ” she speculated. 

“ Because of them blessed Babes in the Wood,” answered 
Miss Kingscote glibly. 

“ Miss Kingscote, let us try to comfort the poor young 
madam, with her worse than fatherless babe,” suggested 
Lady Bell, as she conjured up a host of pensive recollections. 

“Ay, ay; I expect you two will be as thick as peas,”, said 
Miss Kingscote, nodding confidentially. 

The lady arrived that very evening to supper. She had 
posted from town to Lumley ; she had heard there that 
lodgings were provided for her by the mayor, who was the 
son of a former bailiff in her family, and had come straight 
on, in the chaise, with her child and attendant. 


AN OLD FRIEND. 


149 


Miss Kingscote, who was apt to be in a muddle, and never 
ready for anything, was, as she described it, slipping ” into 
her best gown. Master Charles was out. “ Oh, the dickens ! 
the dickens ! What ever is to be done? ” cried Miss Kings- 
cote to Mrs. Barlowe. “ Bun like a lovey, you are always as 
neat as though you’d been lifted out of a box, and wait on 
madam at the coach door. Say we’re main glad to see her, 
which we beant not yet awhile ; but them’s the words. Help 
her out ; take the child and call it a pretty lamb. The mother 
won’t go and mind ceremony then. I wouldn’t for my life 
she did mind, ’cause of the mayor’s people. See the whole 
set to their rooms, Mrs. Barlowe. Swear the beds are aired, 
the fire will be lit as soon as we can say Jack Eobinson, and 
we ain’t at the mercy of bugs. I’ll be there to bid madam 
make herself at home in a trice.” 

Lady Bell went out in the early summer dusk, with a new 
moon coming out calm and sweet, and the blackbirds singing 
a late note to their mates in the nests among the orchard 
boughs, unwotting of the shots and snares which were in 
store for them. Here were a different night and place, with 
a very different major domo and chatelaine from what had 
greeted Lady Bell when she came to St. Bevis’s. 

“I have been sent to bring you in, madam,” said the fresh 
young voice to the occupants of the chaise, who were only to 
be guessed at in its recesses ; but the travellers must have 
thought that the voice spoke very delicately and gently, with 
a heartfelt sympathy in its liquid undertones. “You 
must be done up with fatigue, but rest and refreshment 
are at hand. Let me take the child, I shall be very 
careful.” 

The lady within did not respond immediately. She sat 
arrested for a moment. Then she got out quickly, directed 
the nurse to carry the infant within doors from the dews, but 
declared that for herself, she desired a mouthful of fresh air, 


LADY BELL. 


150 

and a turn backwards and forwards after being so long shut 
up in the cbaise, before sbe entered tbe bouse and sat down 
to supper. Sbe took Lady Bell’s arm and drew ber into tbe 
orchard instead of into tbe entrance-ball, while ber maid and 
Miss Kingscote’s servants fraternised on tbe spot over tbe 
whimsies ” of fine ladies. 

Tbe two shipwrecked young creatures — tbe stranger in tbe 
wraps was only a few years older than Lady Bell — thus thrown 
together, stood in tbe twilight orchard discovered to each 
other, as they bad been after tbe first moment of their meet- 
ing again, ready to make common cause as they bad done ere 
now, to league together against their enemies and tbe whole 
world. 

“Lady Bell Trevor,” said Mrs. Sundon — tbe voice bad 
a jarred and broken tone, instead of its old full harmony 
— “I have found you at last. How did you come here? 
What are you doing here since — since Squire Trevor lost bis 
election ? You’ll never refuse to tell me, for I must be your 
best friend, with whom your secret is safe.” 

But Lady Bell was overcome by identifying ber old idol 
whom sbe bad served to the utmost, in this figure whose 
pedestal was shattered and its companion figure gone for 
ever. Lady Bell gave way far more than tbe speaker bad 
failed in composure, and sobbed and cried, “Ob, Mrs. Sundon, 
I thought you were happy, if anybody on earth was happy, 
and now to bear and see you like this ! ” 

“ Hush ! bush 1 ” enjoined Mrs. Sundon with nervous firm- 
ness, as one who would not listen lest ber own hardly-won 
calmness should be ruffled to its depths. “It is tbe common 
lot, like death, that we should be deceived and wronged ; if 
there ar® exceptions, they are so rare, that what right had I, 
or my friends for me, to count on my forming one ? I have 
not lost all when I have found you.” 

On thQ couple’s repairing to the house, they gave no signs 


AN OLD FRIEND. 


151 

any previous acquaintance, and Lady Bell was Mrs. Bar- 
lowe to Madam Sundon. 

Miss Kingscote did not suspect any collusion ; slie was so 
easily blinded, that there was no credit in blinding her. She 
had made up her mind from the first that Madam Sundon 
and Mrs. Barlowe, in right of their common misfortunes as 
wives, would be, according to her own phrase, “ as thick as 
peas,” she only congratulated herself on her penetration 
when her prophecy was fulfilled. 

She was not jealous, her mingled good nature and self- 
conceit constituted a panoply against jealousy, while the 
mutual attraction between the ladies relieved her from the 
obligation of entertaining the mayor’s friend. 

Master Charles had a little more knowledge of the world, 
but it seemed to him the most natural thing possible, that 
two elegant young women belonging to another order from 
that of a good soul like his sister Deb, with a similarity in 
misfortune serving farther to unite them, should be irresis- 
tibly drawn to each other. He would have been astonished 
if they had kept apart. 

He was not struck by the spontaneousness and equality of 
the friendship. He did not pause to think that Madam Sundon, 
who had the reputation with the mayor’s family of being high 
as well as gracious, and determined and discreet even to hard- 
ness, in breaking with her forsworn infatuated husband, was 
not a likely person to rush without a suflicient motive into an 
intimate friendship with a young woman in Mrs. Barlowe’s 
position. The mere circumstance that Mrs. Barlowe’s presence 
at Nutfield was an abnormal element of daily life, was enough 
to convince Master Charles that it would fit into the other 
abnormal elements, as a necessity of the case. 

While Miss Kingscote and Master Charles accorded their 
ready consent to the connection, it would be difficult to tell 
its preciousness to Lady Bell. It was like sunshine irradiating 

i 


152 


LADY BELL. 


a dull landscape, like water springing up in a desert, like 
tlie restoration of an alien to forfeited privileges, never before 
held so dear. 

Tbe atmosphere of bigb-bred and refined society was 
regained. A sense of reliance in tbe presence of a powerful 
friend was experienced. Tbe debgbtful tie of sisterhood to 
which Lady Bell bad not been born, was acquired. Tbe 
wholesome antidote of passionate interest in and deep pity for 
another, tried as sorely as Lady Bell had been tried, was sup- 
plied. Lady Bell had the constant example of Mrs. Sundon’s 
dignified reserve and womanly fortitude. She shared in the 
higher intelligence of her friend. She received from Mrs. 
Sundon many pieces of information for which she had been 
secretly longing. She found the most charming plaything in 
Mrs. Sundon’s baby. 

Such were some of the many benefits which Mrs. Sundon’s 
unexpected appearance on the scene brought to Lady Bell, 
and for which she gave thanks. 

Mrs. Sundon was never “high” to Lady Bell; not only 
was she too magnanimous and loyal a woman to forget old 
service, because its gain had passed away — there was balm 
to the woman’s wounded spirit in the girl’s enthusiastic ad- 
miration and firm faith. 

Onl}" slightly separated in years, both of them wives, and 
unhappy wives, Lady Bell was still half a lifetime younger 
in experience than Mrs. Sundon. 

Next to her child, Lady Bell became the consolation and 
interest of Mrs. Sundon’s life — blighted by a blight of which 
she could not speak. Lady Bell, too, had been wounded by 
the hunters, but her wound had not been dealt by the hand 
of a friend, and had not, pierced to the quick. Mrs. Sundon 
could not only cherish Lady Bell, she could devise plans for 
the girl’s restoration to life and happiness. 


Lady Bell started and rose up in vague perturbation. 







CHAPTEE XX. 


A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST. 

^NE hot day in the latter end of June, Lady Bell was 
sitting iri the orchard, with Mrs. Sundon’s child in her 
lap, cooing to it, tickling it, tossing it, decking it with 
daisies, pretending to herself and to it, that the not-many- 
weeks-old child noticed and appreciated its floral finery. 

The long, flower-besprinkled grass grew all round, beneath 
the bending, leafy boughs, through the shadows of which 
came perpetually shifting chequers of sunshine. There could 
just be seen, down a vista, the quaint, grey house of Nutfield, 
with the last year’s yellow corn-stacks beyond the orchard, 
mellowing and warming the green and grey tints under the 
blue and white cloud-flecked sky. 

Mrs. Sundon with her fine figure and face, in one of her 
white wrappers and close caps, came slowly up between the 
interlacing boughs; she stopped beside Lady Bell and the 
child, looking down upon them. The group was very sweet 
and graceful, and wanted only a St. Joseph and a little St. 
John to make it stand for one of the old Italian “ Eiposos.” 

‘‘Look here. Lady Bell,” said Mrs, Sundon, putting her 
finger on a paragraph in a newspaper which she held in her 
hand. 

Lady Bell started and rose up in vague perturbation. For 
precaution’s sake Mrs. Sundon had abstained from giving her 

7 * 


154 


LADY BELL. 


friend, even in private, that friend’s name and title, since 
Mrs. Sundon had discovered Lady Bell at Nutfield. What 
had surprised the compromising words from Mrs. Sundon 
now ? 

Lady Bell took the newspaper and looked at the place 
indicated. Her hand was shaking, her breath was coming 
fast, her eyes were dazzled ; but the intimation was so plain 
and direct that she took in its meaning at a glance. There 
was no ambiguity there to prevent the message reaching its 
destination and doing its work. “ If Lady Bell Trevor 
wish to see her husband in life, let her return at once to 
Trevor Court.” 

A mist passed before Lady Bell’s eyes ; the sunny June 
orchard, with the soft, fair child whom Mrs. Sundon had 
taken into her arms, and Mrs. Sundon herself, all grew in a 
moment blurred and dark, as if the very dews of death and 
remorse had fallen on them. 

“Oh, Mrs. Sundon, what shall I do?” cried Lady Bell, 
wringing her hands. “ I did not love him, I had no cause 
to love him ; but I was his wife, who was yet no wife to him, 
and he is a dying man.” 

“ Go back to him immediately,” advised Mrs. Sundon, 
“while there is still time to wipe out your offence to him — it 
was light compared with his to you. But it is ill having an 
unsettled score with the dead. This would hang like a 
millstone round your neck, and weigh you down all your 
days.” 

“ I’ll go back if you counsel it,” submitted Lady Bell 
desperately, setting off in nervous haste to the house. “ But 
how am I to face him ? if he have strength left to lift his hand 
still, will he strike me as I have seen him strike his man ? 
Or, if he is gone, must I stay in the house with the dead, I 
who never saw anybody die but. Lady Lucie, who died bless- 
ing me ? Would that I had minded her precepts better ; she 


A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST. 


155 


would not have had me leave the worst of husbands. And 
how many miles will it be to ’ post cross country, Mrfe. 
Sundon ? you have a good head and may guess. Can you 
tell me if I shall be as long in going as I was in coming 
here ? only I did not come straight ! Oh ! will you be go 
kind as to lend me the money you think I shall need, for I 
have only three crowns in my purse ? ” 

“My dear, I shall take you,” said Mrs. Sundon quietly. 
“Do you think I would send you off on such an errand 
alone?” 

“Oh, I am so thankful,” Lady Bell admitted in her relief, 
“ now I may do my duty at last ; no, I don’t mean that,” she 
checked herself the next moment, “I cannot hear of you 
doing such a thing. How could you leave your baby ? You 
are too delicate yet for such a journey — and to go to that 
neighbourhood of all others. It is vastly generous of you to 
propose it, just what I should have expected from you ; but, 
of course, I cannot consent ; I shall manage by myself, 
somehow.” 

“ Say no more. Lady Bell,” Mrs. Sundon put an end to the 
discussion, “I am going with you. The child will do very 
well with her nurse. Do you think I would put my child, 
any more than, myself, between me and my duty and 
privilege ? I should call that treating my child very iU, 
paying her a poor compliment, for which I should hope she 
would never thank me. I am abler for the journey than I 
was for coming here. 1 need not fear to go near Chevely, 
which has been sold, as I dare say you’ve heard. You can- 
not tell what I can do without harm to my health,” declared 
Mrs. Sundon, with a little bitterness. “I travelled from 
what had been my home, handed into the carriage by a 
bailiff on starting, and went out of town when my child was 
no more than ten days old. I could not have slept another 
night under that roof. But even if I had been a weaker 


LADY BELL. 


156 

.roman, I should not have shrunk from this poor effort, and 
j|,ou would not have refused me my right.” 

Lady Bell had no longer the heart, any more than the will, 
to decline Mrs. Sundon’s support in the emergency. If Mrs. 
Sundon’s presence made Mr. Trevor mad — should he regard 
it as another act of wilful disobedience even when Lady Bell 
was pretending to obey him — it would be time enough then to 
undertake the ungracious task of refusing the elder woman’s 
countenance. 

The great news that Mrs. Sundon and Mrs. Barlowe were 
to set off on horseback within the hour, availing themselves, 
by permission, of Miss Kingscote’s and Master Charles’s horses, 
in order to reach Luniley, where they were to hire a chaise to 
proceed on a journey of indefinite duration, fell fiat. It 
was as nothing compared to the stunning shock infiicted on 
Miss Kingscote when Mrs. Sundon saw fit to communicate to 
the hostess the real rank and history of her companion. 

“ Lud! lud ! a Lady Bell all the time, and I to have gone 
and found fault with her, and kept her pottering about my 
business, mending lace, and cleaning silver, lud-a-mercy, 
what shall I do, brother ? Mayn’t I be took up by the King 
or the Lords, like the ’torney was, whom I’ve heard tell of, 
no farther gone than father and mother’s day, afore we came 
down in the world, and I were a mite of a child — he gave a 
warrant to arrest a fine lady in her coach in the street, at the 
suit of a tradesman, and he himself was had up before the 
justices —I mean afore the Lords, for an insult to the quality. 
Mayn’t I be had up and put in prison, though I never 
knowed, nor meant it, and I’ll beg her pardon over and over 
again, and she was a right-down pleasant lass, madam — 
Lud ! I’m losing my head — lady, save when she was in the 
tantrums.” 

‘‘Nonsense, Deb,” exclaimed Master Charles impatiently; 
“you did her a kindness, and helped her in her end. As it 


A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST. 1 57 

proves,” lie continued a little sarcastically ; “ whether Miss or 
Madam, she has been all along far beyond our flight, ai^d 
will never waste another thought on us, now that she has 
found birds of her own feather, and is ready to go off with 
them to her own perch.” 

“She were a runaway wife all the same,” reflected Miss 
Kingscote sapiently, “ though she were ten times a Lady 
Bell, and she had left her man as must have been hers in the 
face of day, which made the leaving a heap bolder in my 
madam — nay, my lady. I vow I as good as tolled her she 
was no match for the Kingscotes of Nutfield.” 

“You had nothing to do to say anything of the kind, 
even though this Lady Bell had been a simple waiting-maid 
or sculKon, I don’t care which.” Master Charles was pro- 
voked into telling his sister, as his good-humoured indul- 
gence gave way, “The Kingscotes have not kept their 
own in the world without loss, and they can ill afford to 
despise the humblest — I say that, if I am supposed to have 
anything to do with the future matching of the Kingscotes,” 
declared the young gentleman loftily, “ and they’ll be long 
enough of being matched for me, since I could bring a mate 
to little better than a farm-house, and a farmer’s kin. I’ll 
thank you. Deb, not to meddle in the matter.” 

“There, I’ve given offence to Master Charles,” Miss 
Kingscote reflected glumly after she was alone. “He’s 
taken to hurting my feeKngs by twitting me with what 
we’ve lost, as if the worsest loss weren’t mine! not that I 
show it neither, for I’m sure I’m a powerful flne woman, 
considering my lack of education. And so she’s Lady Bell, 
and if she had bidden still, I mun have said my lady every 
blessed word, and run at her heels as I’ve never made her 
run at mine. But i£ this Squire Trevor, as she has given 
leg-bail to, had not come oh the carpet, first and foremost, 
0 ere we set eyes on her, mightn’t she have been my Lady Bell 


158 


LADY BELL. 


Kingscote ! That do sound fine ! prodigious fine ! But if 
there had never been no Squire Trevor, there would never have 
been no bolting, banding with the players, turning up at 
Nutfield, and making friends with Master Charles, so there 
is an end on’t. My Master Charles mun go to the wars, and 
risk a sabre cut’s spoiling his bonnie face,” mused Miss 
Kingscote, whimpering at the very thought, afore he fill 
his chimney-corner, and bring home his lady to sit down 
cheek by jowl with him, while I’ll be right glad to retire to 
mother’s room, save when they want my company, for I ain’t 
teethy or prideful — never were. That mun be the order of 
the day, as Master Charles ought to know.” 

Even before the parting, Master Charles had cause to 
renounce his mortified conviction of how little he and his 
sister were to Lady Bell Trevor, and of how she had done 
with them from this day.* 

She was grateful for the assistance and escort as far as 
Lumley, which he offered so soon as he ascertained that the 
offer would be agreeable to her and Madam Sundon. 

Lady Bell put her head out of the chaise window at the 
last. Her scared eyes looked with almost timid beseeching 
into his face. She told him, without any sign of haughti- 
ness, but with many tokens of a retentive memory for the 
smallest act of consideration and kindness, of contrition for 
having played a part to him and his sister, and for not having 
trusted them in full, that she had been very well off and 
happy at Nutfield. She hoped that his colours would arrive 
soon, that he would see a campaign to his wish, and retui’n 
safe and sound to cheer his sister’s heart. 

Lady Bell sent Miss Kingscote her grateful duty. Lady 
Bell trusted they would meet again, when she would be able 
to finish her chair-covers. In the meantime, she would not 
forget to procure patterns for Miss Kingscote. Miss Enngs- 
cote must be especially kind to Lady Bell’s brood of chicks — • ^ 


A MESSAGE OUT OF THE PAST. 


159 


tlie first brood sbe bad seen set, seen batched, and fed every 
day witb ber own bands. 

It was plain that for tbe moment, in place of being eager 
to resume ber cast-off rank and state, Lady Bell bad forgotten 
wLere and wby sbe was going, and everything about Squire 
Trevor and bis danger. It was only when tbe chaise rolled 
off, and sbe sank back in ber corner, that sbe withdrew into 
herself to . face tbe grim record of tbe bond sbe bad broken, 
and tbe forfeit sbe was called on to pay. 

It was on a fresh summer morning, when having started 
early to accomplish tbe last stage of their journey. Lady Bell 
and Mrs. Sundon came in sight of Trevor Court. 

Tbe gates were standing open ; early as it was, tbe lodge 
seemed deserted, so that tbe chaise entered without parley. 
The dew was lying like pearls on the grass by tbe drive, and 
silvering tbe yews on the terrace. Tbe spirals of smoke 
from the red chimney-stacks were rising straight in tbe clear 
air. A gush of birds’ song sounded far and wide. There 
was something light, bright, and exhilarating in tbe air, and 
in tbe aspect of nature, which lent a peculiar charm to what 
was imposing in tbe pile of building and its grounds. 

“I have not seen Trevor Court before, save from a dis- 
tance,’^ Mrs. Sundon let fall tbe remark. “ You never told 
me, Lady Bell, what a fine old place it was.” 

‘‘I don’t think I ever noticed it till tbe last time I saw it,” 
Lady Bell replied almost in a whisper ; sbe recalled vividly 
that last time sitting on tbe September morning in tbe travel- 
ling chariot beside its master, who lingered in taking a short 
leave of bis treasure. 

Tbe next moment Lady Bell gave a shriek and put ber 
bands before ber face. Tbe chaise bad turned into tbe sweep 
before tbe bouse, where, in sombre contrast to tbe summer 
morning, tbe windows were all shrouded, and tbe hatchment 
was up. 


CHAPTEE XXI. 


FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD. 

TT was as a quailing widow, and not as a reluctant wife, 
that Lady Bell re-entered the old oak parlour, where she 
still trembled lest she should hear her husband’s loud, rough 
accents stuttering with rage, and his stick, when gout con- 
fined him to his chair, savagely beating the fioor. 

Mrs. Walsh, in her towering cap and starched frill, 
received Lady Bell, and spoke to the point, without softening 
or reservation. “Yes, it is all over. Lady Bell; the Squire 
died last night at ten o’clock. He was took with a jaundice 
on Wednesday se’en night; but no danger was apprehended 
till five days ago, when Mr. Walsh writ the notice for the 
papers — to no purpose, so far as the Squire’s desiring to see 
and speak with you once more was concerned. You and he 
will not see and speak with each other on this side of the 
judgment day.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Walsh, I came as fast as ever I could.” Lady 
Bell humbled herself in the dust before her ancient enemy. 
“I know now 1 was a bad, bad wife. I would give all I 
have in the world to be able to live the last year over again, 
and do my duty by your cousin, who is lying stiff and cold in 
one of these rooms, where I shall never hear him say that he 
forgives me, that he makes allowance at last for my youth, 
my wounded pride — what had a sinful creatui’e to do with 


FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD. l6l 

pride ? — ^my forced inclinations. Oh. ! tell me he did not lay 
his curse upon me with his last breath?” implored Lady 
Bell, ready to sink down with grief and terror, while she 
clasped her hands and looked up, her distended eyes brim- 
ming over with scalding tears, in Mrs. Walsh’s inflexible 
face. 

“ Yes, Lady Bell, you were a bad wife, and you would not 
take a telling while it was in your power,” declared the 
uncompromising woman, standing bold upright, her very 
mittens bristling with her righteous protest. 

“ Madam,” interposed Mrs. Sundon with rising indignation, 
“it is monstrous to reproach this poor child at such a time. 
She is sufficiently crushed by the nature of the event which 
has taken place, following on her rashness. She will not be 
likely to forget it, even without your accusations to embitter 
the blow. I vouch for Lady Bell’s having lived in safety and 
honour since she quitted her husband. Madam, you will not 
refuse my voucher ? ” 

“ Madam, I have not heard your honesty questioned, 
therefore I grant that Lady Bell has come back in honest 
company,” acknowledged Mrs. Walsh stiffiy, “which is more 
than might have been hoped, from her flying in the face of 
law and duty, and exposing herself to the worst perils.” 

“Though you are the late Mr. Trevor’s kinswoman, you 
must know,” said Mrs. Sundon, “that Lady Bell Trevor has 
been more sinned against than sinning.” 

“ I know that she is not too young or fair or fine to be 
accountable for her errors to a Power before which the most 
wilful lady will not dare to plead her daintiness,” maintained 
Mrs. Walsh doggedly. “But I know, too, that you were 
sinned against. Lady Bell,” she added candidly, turning to 
the overwhelmed offender. “So far as that goes. Squire 
Trevor did not deserve your duty. But you had the will of a 
higher than my poor cousin to consider, and where should 

M 


i 62 


LADY BELL. 


we all be, if we got our due, and no more ? It was on the 
Squire’s mind at the last that he had wronged you ; and. he 
sought to receive, as well as to bestow, forgiveness, before he 
could die in peace.” 

‘‘ I did not merit it,” said Lady Bell ; ‘‘ but you told him, 
dear Mrs. Walsh — oh, say that you told the old man that I 
forgave him, as I hope to be forgiven ? ” 

“I charged him to repent, and if he had done any wrong 
to a fellow-creature which he could atone for, to make amends. 
Then I bade him turn for forgiveness for that, and all his 
sins, to the great God and Saviour, against whom he had 
chiefly sinned, but who would never refuse him forgiveness, 
since, in the very act of his seeking it, they were pledged for 
his salvation.” 

“ Oh, thank God! that he died in peace with me,” broke 
in Lady Bell impetuously. 

‘‘ Bather thank God that he died in peace with his Maker, 
madam,” Mrs. AValsh did not fail to rebuke her. I think 
he did ; I am fain to hope he did, though he was not able to 
fulfil his part of the obligation here ; the will must stand for 
the deed. ’Torney Kenyon, who did all the Squire’s business, 
was from home, at the wedding of his son in Bristol. We 
sent twice, but we could not get hold of the man in time. I 
think it is better to tell you at once, Lady Bell, what you 
will hear later.” 

“ As you will, madam,” replied Lady Bell dejectedly. 

“The Squire’s will was executed long before he ever saw 
your face, when his estate was bequeathed, failing any heir 
of his body, to my eldest son Jack. The substance of that 
will has been repeated since you offended the Squire, and it 
has neither been revoked nor altered, as my cousin certainly 
desired it to be altered, in his dying moments. But Mr. 
Walsh and me, expecting that you, or some one for you, 
would answer our summons, if you were in the country, 


FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD. 1 63 

have made up our minds, and will answer for Jack at his 
college, to take your wishes on the matter.” 

“I have no wishes, Mrs. Walsh,” exclaimed Lady Bell 
hastily. 

“We shall let you have whatever compensation you desire,” 
went on Mrs. Walsh, paying no heed to the demur, “being 
well aware that such were Squire Trevor’s intentions while 
he was yet in the body, and in his right mind, so that you 
are indebted to no bounty, but to bare justice for your share 
of the worldly inheritance that our cousin has left behind 
him.” 

“ Madam, this honourable conduct does you and Mr. Walsh 
infinite credit.” Mrs. Sundon could not refrain from award- 
ing her hearty approbation to her late antagonist. 

“Mrs. Sundon, I repeat that ’tis but justice,” argued Mrs. 
Walsh with a stateliness of her own, winding up with her 
own favourite axiom, “ The world and I have shaken hands 
long ago.” 

“You are all a great deal too kind to me,” wept Lady 
Bell, “a rebel who deserted my post. But indeed I had 
liefer, if you do not think it an impertinence in me to make 
an objection, that Mr. Trevor’s goods went to you and your 
son Jack, his friends. I am sure I have no right to a single 
sixpence.” 

“Beware of pride and sauciness stiU under the garb of 
disinterestedness. Lady BeU,” Mrs. Walsh said severely. 

“Nay, I’ll do whatever you will,” Lady Bell hastened to 
amend her statement, quite subdued, and feeling sadly as if 
she would never have the heart to have a will of her own 
again. 

“ Madam, a second time everything shall be as you will, 
and as your friends — such as Madam Sundon and your man 
of business, if you will please to name him — ^may decide for 
you,” Mrs Walsh laid down the law. 


164 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Bell knew tkat ske was not and never would be mis- 
tress of Trevor Court. Not tkat ske desired it; ske even 
recoiled from it as from a sacrilege. 

After tke funeral, wken tke two ladies kappened to be 
alone together, Mrs. Sundon said to Lady Bell, — 

“ Tkey are good people, tkese Walskes, my dear. I skould 
tkink very good people to deal witk and to raise a country 
parish sunk in rude ignorance and gross transgression. Tkat 
was not your case exactly, but I tkink you might have got 
on witk them, and been tke better and not tke worse for 
them. To be plain witk you, I cannot kelp saying, though 
it may be presumptuous, tkat I tkink I could have got 
on witk them. I could acquire a great regard for tkat 
woman, and I fancy I might have a still greater for her 
good man. As for Sally, I skould have sought to soften her 
brusqueness ; yet brusqueness is not so great a fault wken it 
ccTmes to weighing faults. But you were too young, and you 
were petulant between youth and hard usage.” 

“ I shall get on witk them now,” said Lady Bell wistfully, 
looking incredibly young and very fair in tke weeds which 
had been provided for her, and which ske had hastened to 
put on witk her trembling frightened fingers, as a mark of 
respect for tke dead, doing it the more eagerly because ske 
had failed in respect for tke living. 

“I see tke servants look sourly on me, and no wonder,” 
confided Lady Bell to her friend, “ for tkey stood by their 
master, whom his wife left. But I’ll bear it, and try to 
bring them to tkink better of me, though Trevor Court is not 
mine, and I cannot stay here, and keep tke old people and ask 
them to serve me. Mrs. Walsh will see to her cousin’s 
household, tkat is my comfort. I will do everything Mrs. 
Walsh bids me from this time. I’ll be good, Mrs. Sundon,” 
promised Lady Bell, witk a faint smile at her own cluldisk- 
ness. “ But seriously, Mrs. Walsh took my place, and saved 


FREED BY THE VISITATION OF GOD. 165 

me from a grievous reflection wMcL. would liave flaunted my 
deatfl-fled. Sfle will teacfl me to be a self-denying, devoted 
Cflristian woman like flerself. I believe I did not judge 
Sally Walsfl justly,” Lady Bell flnisfled witfl a little sigfl 
of compunction and doubt. “ I dare say sfle was not so pert 
and rude as I tflougflt fler. I know sfle was far more dutiful 
tflan I flave been.” 

Mrs. Sundon said notfling more at tfle time ; but sfle deter- 
mined tflat sfle would not leave Lady Bell witfl tfle Walsfles, 
tflougfl Mrs. Sundon was able to do tflem justice. “ Tfley 
were never tfle people, flowever good tfleir intentions, to flave 
tfle guidance of Lady Bell,” reflected tfle lady. “ Now tflat 
Lady Bell’s spirit is broke and fler conscience burdened, sfle 
would become tfleir slave. I flad almost as soon put fler into 
a nunnery, wflere, in tfle present state of fler feelings, sfle 
■ would be content to take refuge, but wflere in time sfle would 
•be driven eitfler into fanaticism or flypocrisy, my generous, 
tender Lady Bell ! Just wflen sfle is freed too, by tfle judg- 
ment of Grod, from fler cruel gaoler (God forgive Aim!) and 
restored to flope and flappiness. Wfly, tflere is a brigflt life 
before Lady Bell wflicfl? notfling lias come to spoil beyond 
recall. So flelp me, I wiU make it brigflt and safe for fler as 
I would make it for my little Caro, since Lady Bell came for- 
ward of fler own sweet will and did wflat sfle could to keep 
me in Paradise. Ofl ! it is well for Lady BeU tflat witfl aU 
fler early trials sfle lias not taken forbidden fruit into fler 
moutfl, and found it turn to dust and asfles between fler 
teetfl. Tflere is no great good under tfle sun, but I will 
pursue tfle lesser good for my Lady Bell wflen sfle begins to 
look up and smile again. Bless tfle cflild ! wflat is tfle loss 
by flonest deatfl of sucfl a flusband as Squire Trevor, tflougfl 
sfle was desperate enougfl to run away from Aim, compared 
to wflat some women flave to bear ? I will keep tfle know- 
ledge of evil from fler, as I would keep it from Caro. 


• LADY BELL. 


lob 

She shall not fail to be, so far as I can help her, a devoted 
Christian woman ; but it shall be after her own kind. ‘ Wis- 
dom shall be justified of all her children.’ ” 

The Squire’s funeral sermon was preached. It was not 
without its unvarnished allusions, even though they were in 
the mouth of Mrs. Walsh’s mild spouse, and not of the most 
redoubtable champion of truth in the parish, to the evils of 
stout spirits, stormy passions, and family discord. It was 
listened to with penitent humiliation and meekness. 

A decent interval passed, and the arrangements were com- 
pleted, by which Lady Bell was put into possession of a 
moderate jointure, in addition to her marriage settlement, 
from her deceased husband’s estate. 

Then Mrs. Sundon hurried her friend just a little on the 
plea of the necessity of Mrs. Sundon’s return to her child, and 
carried Lady Bell back to Nutfield in the fiirst place. 


CHAPTEE XXn. 


KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER. 

T ADY BELL and Mrs. Sundon were so well pleased with 
each other, that they agreed finally to take up house 
together. They liked the air and aspect of Nutfield so well, 
that they fixed on dwelling in the neighbourhood, though no 
longer under the wing of Miss Kingscote. 

The two ladies rented one of the cottages ornh which were 
beginning to be built between the town of Lumley and 
Nutfield. 

Summerhill had for its nucleus a one-storied erection of 
black and white timber, to which a wooden verandah had 
been added all round. The whole was set in a large enough 
garden and paddock to afford room for ingenuity to propose 
and execute a number of wonderful performances in the 
shape of winding walks, mounds, grottos, bowers, even a 
dovecot and a dairy. 

The house was unfurnished, so that the tenants had 
another gain in fitting ii up according to their tastes. Every- 
thing that Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon ordered for their use 
was bright and tasteful. There was a good deal of white 
painted wood and white dimity, relieved by warm, deep- 
coloured carpet-work and rich embroidery. 

The ladies gave evidence in the decorations of their house 
of ability and refinement, according to the standard of their 


i68 


LADY BELL. 


day. There were home-mamifactured brackets, sconces, 
card-baskets, and music-trays in abundance. These things 
supplied Lady Bell with endless employment, and were sources 
of pride and delight to her. 

Lady Bell had thought to herself, first when she became a 
widow, that she should go softly mourning for her sins and 
her strife with Squire Trevor all her days. She was per- 
fectly sincere then, as well as afterwards, and she did not 
cease to be sorry for having done wrong ; but to her surprise, 
and a little to her shame, not only did her youthful spirits 
soon recover their elasticity and throw off the load of con- 
trition and melancholy refiections ; but in addition she was 
very happy — ^happier than she had ever been in her life 
before, not even excepting her early days with Lady Lucie 
Penruddock. 

Lady Bell was not merely like one of those graceful 
creatures of the air which, casting the slough of the chry- 
salis, rises buoyant in its elegance and beauty. She had 
found a true mate, a companion and friend, a natural equal 
and ally. 

Eventful as the last year had been, and calculated to 
develop her nature. Lady Bell was not past the age when 
girls like her have the strongest tendency to contract friend- 
ship with members of their own sex, and when indeed for 
the most part the closest, firmest, womanly friendships are 
formed. And that was the generation of women’s friend- 
ships, crowned by the sacrifice of the world for each other, 
made by the two ladies of Llangollen. 

There was just the amount of superiority in years, expe- 
rience, and acquirements on Mrs. Sundon’s part, and the 
kind of essential difference between the young women to 
confirm Lady Bell’s romantic admiration for her friend, 
without preventing a ffee and full interchange of sentiment 
and opinion. 


KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER. 


109 

Lady Bell resumed gladly and with grateful acknowledg- 
ment of the support which she received from Mrs. Sundon, 
all Lady Bell’s native pursuits, which had been so continually 
interrupted and baulked. 

A modern girl commanding a thousand modes of cul- 
tivation, untU she is oppressed by them, will find it hard to 
comprehend the self-respect and satisfaction with which Lady 
Bell returned to her studies ; her French — in which Mrs. 
Sundon was a better qualified assistant, so far as speaking 
went, than Mr. Greenwood at St. Bevis’s — her thrumming on 
a spinnet, her warbling of ‘‘Haik, the lark,” and “Waft 
her, angels.” 

Mrs. Sundon kept up her connection with town and the 
world, and had not only fashions, but newspapers and parcels 
of books forwarded to her by the carrier and the bookseller 
in Lumley. 

The ladies were abreast of their times (in which the war 
with America was taking more and more serious proportions), 
and of the literature of the day. 

“Sir Charles Grandison ” was becoming an oldish book, 
and “Evelina” had not yet come out. But Mr. Brooke’s 
“ Fool of Quality” was making its mark, and was warmly 
welcomed as a step in the right direction by all good men 
and women, including Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell. In 
sermons the ladies read Porteous or Blair. In poetry 
they studied Mason’s “Flower Garden” and Goldsmith’s 
“Deserted Ylllage,” while in travels. Pennant’s “Tour” 
seemed to them to have extended to the extremity of the 
civilised world. 

The absence, except at short intervals, of even a provincial 
theatre, which figured so largely as an intellectual influence 
at the close of the last century, was supplied in a degree to 
Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell. They had the vigorous notices 
and criticisms of the most popular plays and players in the 
8 


170 


LADY BELL. 


town newspapers ; so that even while living at a distance, the 
ladies could enjoy at second-hand the heroics of “Douglas” 
and the nonsense of “ Polly Honeycomb.” 

Lady Bell made many charming new attainments, and that 
season at Summerhill was, after all, in the fullest sense, the 
spring-time of her life, when she was learning something new 
every day, and was fast budding into fresh promise. 

All Lady Bell’s fine-lady gifts and graces had been origin- 
ally overmuch of the town, townish. But Mrs. Sundon had 
been a fine lady of the country, as well as of the town, and 
could lead Lady Bell into elegant rurality, and even inoculate 
the girl with a true love of the country and of country life. 

Under Mrs. Sundon’s superintendence. Lady Bell became a 
lady gardener, and advanced with rapid strides from an 
apprentice to a journeyman, until, in addition to her old 
power of embroidering facsimiles of leaves and fiowers, she 
could make carpets and canopies of the plants themselves, 
hang the verandah with them, and grow living orange-trees in 
the window alcove of the sitting-room. She laid carnations 
and budded roses, and was as intent on getting seeds of 
Canterbury bells and slips of geraniums, as ever she had 
been on procuring patterns for aprons and chair covers.' 

Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon had a kitchen as well as a 
flower-garden. They had a white cow in the paddock in 
summer for their own and their baby’s use, and they bor- 
rowed a brood of chickens from Miss Kingscote, that they 
might be sure of new-laid eggs for breakfast. 

The ladies did not commit these acquisitions to their 
establishment entirely to the care of their modest retinue of 
two maids and a man. 

Lady Bell learnt, and did not dream that the learning was * 
derogatory to her, to pull peas and pick gooseberries — 
actually to milk the cow (in a perfunctory and not very 
effectual manner, it must be confessed), so that she could 


KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER. 


171 

aver from her personal knowledge that the sj^Uabuh, which 
she had also made with her own hands, was compounded 
as it ought to have been, of milk warm from the cow. She 
made gooseberry-fool, as well as syllabub, and was very 
conceited about the deed and its success. 

Had poor Squire Trevor been alive and at Summerhill, 
his flighty young wife could even have supplied him with 
his desiderated tansy pudding, at this higher stage of her 
education, and in her greater wisdom. 

Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell dabbled in all sorts of washes, 
balsams, simples, hot drinks, blackberry cheeses, and sticks of 
saffron. Not being Godless selfish unbelievers, and having 
ignorant and helpless poor neighbours, the two ladies became 
in their own way unquestionable Christian Ladies Bountiful 
— clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, tending the sick, 
and softening the rude, so far as their light and power went. 

Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon were the two women of highest 
rank and polish for a considerable circuit of miles, but they 
were not on that account disdainful and unsocial in their 
intercourse with their middle-class neighbours, such as the 
Vicar and the Mayor of Lumley, the retired military or naval 
officers and their families, who occupied good houses in the 
town, and cottages similar to Summerhill on the outskirts. 
On the contrary, the two ladies were rightly judged models 
of urbanity, a reputation which no doubt they enjoyed, being 
gracious where nobody presumed on their graciousness, while 
they countenanced the Lumley weddings, house-warmings, 
and christenings. 

Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell had a haymaking on their own 
lawn, to which the whole population, so far as the Summer- 
hill grounds would hold them, were invited, and caihe and 
went in ecstasies with the entertainment. 

Mrs. Sundon and Lady BeU became the reigning toasts of 
the neighbourhood. 


172 


LADY BELL. 


It does not follow that the old world and the old town were 
sycophantish ; consider the women and their circumstances. 

Lady Bell Trevor, the daughter of Lord Ether edge and the 
widow of Squire Trevor, of Trevor Court, in the adjoining 
shire, was a beautiful, graceful, intelligent young woman of 
seventeen. 

Mrs. Sundon was not more than four years older,, at twenty- 
one very handsome, with an air of command, which had been 
born with her — command too well assured to be other than 
simple and self-denying, or to require haughtiness and arro- 
gance to back its claims. 

Mrs. Sundon was a woman living in separation from her 
husband, it is true, but by an act quite different from poor 
Lady Bell’s hushed-up escapade. Mrs. Sundon’s separation 
from Gregory Sundon did not affect her social position in the 
least — in effect rather elevated it. 

It was perfectly well understood through the Mayor that 
the details did the greatest honour to Mrs. Sundon’s dignity 
and discretion. And dignity and discretion were qualities 
ver}’- highly, but not unjustly, valued in a generation liable 
to run into extravagant flights and excesses. 

Mrs. Sundon showed the same appreciable discretion in 
refraining from accusing her husband, and in adopting, along 
with a chosen friend, a life of retirement as well as of virtue 
in the flower of her youth, and in bringing up her little girl 
— ^as it was quite understood Mrs. Sundon was bringing up 
the child, "when Caro was not yet three months old — in the 
most meritorious manner. 

The very peculiarity of the two ladies’ position with the 
union of their forces, gave them a freedom and weight in 
the society in which they moved that they could not have 
commanded had they been single women, that they could 
hardly have possessed had they been separate, though each 
had dwelt in the house of her husband. 


KEEPING HOUSE TOGETHER. 


173 


Witli Nutfield Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon maintained tlie 
most kindly, ckeerful relations, long after use and wont had 
hardened Miss Kingscote to the sound of “ my lady.” When 
the ladies of Summerhill wished a little variety in their 
domestic routine, they had only to stroll over to Nutfield to 
bask in its homely cordiality, and to get a little permissible 
fun out of Miss Kingscote’s uncouth whimsicalities. 

Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon could not have managed for 
themselves without Master Charles to act the part of a 
brother to them. 

In those days, when walking on country roads was not 
always safe for ladies, when they could not attend a single 
public place with propriety, unless they were supported by 
male attendance, a gentleman who was a privileged friend, 
proved indispensable in every household of women. 

Sometimes the friendships thus entertained were of a 
peculiarly gentle and chivalrous character, which the very 
scandal-loving world admitted and respected. Thus it saw no 
objection — not even that of age — in the intimate association 
of a young man like Master Charles with two charming 
young women only a little above him in rank, since the one 
was a wife and the other a widow, and both were deprived of 
their natural protectors. 


CHAPTEE XXm. 


FRIENDS IN NEED. 

ANLT once was there an interruption threatened to the 
brother and sister relations between Master Charles and 
the ladies of Summerhill, and that began and ended among 
themselves, and had nothing to do with on-lookers. 

Master Charles called on his friends one day in a moody 
frame of mind. He looked over some debatable accounts 
which belonged to Mrs. Sundon’s department of the joint 
housekeeping. He undertook to see and settle with the 
offending tradesman, and bring him to reason. He agreed 
to stay to the three-o’clock dinner, and relieve Lady Bell 
from the chicken carving. Still his mind was not lightened, 
so that his friends felt it necessary to press him to make a 
clean breast of it. 

The young man admitted that he had been with a party of 
gentlemen on the previous evening, when horse-racing had 
been discussed, and bets had been freely given and taken 
over the wine. 

He had been flushed and excited like the rest, and he had 
made such a book as he feared, withput the greatest good 
luck, would be ruinous to him, when he had not yet got his 
property into his own hands, and any disgrace in money 
matters would put a stop to the exertions of the friends who 
were seeking to procure for him a pair of colours. 


FRIENDS IN NEED. 


175 


He was mad with himself, for he was by no means with- 
out sense and shrewdness as well as principle. He heartily 
wished that he had joined the army as a volunteer, sailed for 
Quebec or Boston in the first transport, and been taken 
prisoner by the Indians, before worse happened to him, and 
before he baulked the expectations of all who had taken 
an interest in so foolish a fellow. He hung his head as he 
made the confession. 

“ Worse shall not happen,” Mrs. Sundon interposed with 
decision. “You are right in consenting to confide in us; 
indeed, we value your confidence, sir, and women are not 
always the worst councillors. I shall speak to the Mayor to 
come forward and help you, if the worst come to the worst ; 
he will do something for my sake, as well as for yours. I 
shall have a little loan at your service.” 

“And I shall club every shilling I can muster with Mrs. 
Sundon’ s,” proposed Lady Bell eagerly; “so pray don’t he 
down-hearted. Master Charles.” 

The young man only hung his head lower. He hated to 
lay women under contribution to pay for his recklessness, 
while he dared not, were it hut for the sake of another 
woman — his sister Deb — dechne the assistance offered to him 
in case of necessity. 

The ready generosity of his friends melted him, so that he 
faltered with feeling, in place of declaiming glibly in the 
expression of his thanks. 

“ Don’t speak of it,” Mrs. Sundon forbade him ; “ only let 
this he a lesson to you in the future,” she added with soft 
earnestness. 

The young man went away subdued in his gratitude, but 
when the crisis was over, he presented himself in a state of 
riotous glee, to free the ladies from their promises, and 
demand their congratulations. 

Master Charles’s three to one and five to two had turned 


76 


LADY BELL. 


out, after all, on the winning side. He had had amazing 
pieces of luck. 

“ By George ! you ladies must wish me joy, and allow me 
the honour and felicity, as the town sparks say, of treating 
you to whatever takes your fancy, a prince’s plume, my Lady 
Bell, a lace apron, Madame Sundon ; sure you richly deserve 
it, and I can afford to please myself for once in my life, since 
in place of coming to grief by this little transaction, I vow I 
have made a very good thing of it,” and he thrust his hands 
hraggingly into the pockets of his frock coat. 

“ Yes, I claim my right to a return for my willingness to 
befriend you. Master Charles,” cried Mrs. Sundon, before 
Lady Bell could speak. “ I thought you were to have a lesson, 
but I find it to he a snare. I want no lace aprons, though I 
shall be happy to take one from you, if you like to grant 
what I ask. Promise me solemnly, sir, on the word of a 
gentleman, that you will both now and after you have 
entered the army, do your best to resist betting oi^ cards and 
horses, at least round a supper-table in the heat of con- 
viviality.” 

“But — but, Mrs. Sundon,” objected Master Charles, taken 
aback, becoming immediately crest-fallen, and colouring 
violently. “No fellow of spirit could be expected to give 
and keep such a promise. I am not soft in these matters, I 
think for a novice I have shown myself as sharp as my 
neighbours,” he drew himself up and laughed, though the 
laugh was a Kttle forced. “ I think — beg your pardon, but 
I do think you take advantage of your kindness — own it was 
very great, to seek to bind me, as no man not a Molly Coddle 
and a nincompoop would be bound in the circumstances.” 

“ Oh, Master Charles, think of Henry, Earl of Morland, in 
the ‘ Pool of Quality,’ ” implored Lady Bell, “ and how you 
were of opinion he was a fine character, and ought to be 
imitated in this dissipated world.” 


177 


% 

FRIENDS IN NEED. 

“ 0ucli conduct is very fine in a book and in theory, but it 
won’t do for bloods in real life and in practice,” he put her 
off impatiently. 

“ Master Charles, I trust you will know that there are 
brave men and gallant soldiers too, that no man would dare 
call |Molly Coddles and nincompoops, who yet set their fae^s 
against the indiscriminate betting and gambling of this 
gambling age,” Mrs. Sundon told him plainly; but that 
was not all. “ Charles Elingscote,” she said, appealing to 
him, face to face, and soul to soul, as it were, when she 
addressed him thus by his Christian name and surname, and 
with her own fine pale face working with emotion and the 
anguish of remembrance. “ If you only knew the misery and 
degradation wrought by this curse of gambling — what gene- 
rous natures have been undone, what happy homes have been 
cast down in ruins, never to be built up again. Shall I lay 
bare the sorrows of my life to enlighten you and save you, if 
lean?” 

“No, Mrs. Sundon,” declared the young man quickly, and 
with pain in his moodiness. “I shall not allow such sacri- 
lege for my fancied needs, and I should be an ingrate to deny 
your request as you put it, however difficult it may seem to 
me. I give you my word, as you desire, without farther 
parley — and now you will permit me to take my leave.” 

The moment he was gone. Lady Bell asked with a puzzled, 
pensive, rather scared anxiety, “Will he keep his word, 
think you ? ” 

“I hope and trust he will,” replied Mrs. Sundon, looking 
troubled still ; “ granting that it will cost him a great effort, 
he is manly and honourable enough in his youth to make 
such an effort ; and he has not seen much bad company, that 
is a blessing, to corrupt him from the beginning. Poor boy ! 
he was so happy when he came in, and we disappointed and 
mortified him. Do you know how he will regard me from 

8* N 


# 

178 LADY BELL. 

this hour, Bell?” Mrs. Sundon inquired abruptly, with a 
certain wistfulness and piteousness for herself, thrilling 
through her tones. “ He is not bumptious or quarrelsome, 
he is a fine, warm-hearted, good-natured lad, but he will 
begin to hate the sight of me.” 

“ No, no,” exclaimed Lady Bell energetically. 

“Yes, yes,” contradicted Mrs. Sundon quietly, shaking her 
head, “ I know all about it. A man pretends sometimes to 
call a woman his mistress, but he cannot forgive her, if she 
ever really play the part. He will excuse almost any error 
in a woman sooner than her finding him wrong, and telling 
him so. She has humbled him then in his own eyes, and he 
cares for that still more than being humbled in hers. She 
becomes irksome to him, and he half fears her, half strives to 
deceive her, himself sinking .lower and lower till he ends by 
hating her outright. When you marry again. Bell, if your 
main object be to preserve your husband’s love, fondle and 
defer to him, and never admit by word or look that you 
recognise he has forfeited your esteem, as well as that of 
every honest man and woman, and is on the high road to 
destruction, carrying you and your unborn child along with 
him.” 

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” protested Lady Bell, half 
crying at the idea. ‘ ‘ I shall speak the truth and clear my 
conscience, Whether I shame the devil or no. But on second 
thoughts, I shall not need, for I shall never think of marry- 
ing again and leaving you and little Caro, and ending our 
happy life here, dear,” declared Lady Bell, turning eagerly 
to caress her friend. 

“ You will not think of it perhaps, but you will do it all 
the same,” said Mrs. Sundon as she gave back the caress ; 
“ however, we may let sleeping dogs lie and not anticipate 
evil. To return to Master Charles ; see if he do not avoid me 
fi’om this day.” 


FRIENDS IN NEED. 


79 


For several weeks it seemed as if Mrs. Sundon’s prognosti- 
cations were to prove correct. It was not that Master Charles 
intermitted his visits to Summerhill, and he was even puncti- 
lious in his continued offers of service to the ladies ; hut some- 
how there was a change in the nature of the intercourse, and 
there was a dryness approaching to sullenness in the young 
gentleman’s manner to Mrs. Sundon. 

But at the close of these weeks Master Charles thought 
better of it, and came looking shame-faced, yet, but frank 
and ingenuous as ever, and told Mrs. Sundon, “I have been 
compelled to be a little more particular in my company since 
the promise you made me give you, which, of course, I was 
resolved to keep, come what like of it. But I have reaped 
the benefit of it already, I have discovered that there are 
plenty of gentlemen of parts and spirit, good judges of horse- 
flesh besides, who will not play at higher than half-crown 
points, and will not lay a wager on a horse, or a dog, unless 
it be so trifling a one that they have no anxiety about it, and 
have all their minds to bestow on their proper affairs. They 
are ready to welcome me to their company when they see 
that I prefer it. You were quite right, Mrs. Sundon, I add 
my poor testimony to my promise.” 

The dryness and sullenness disappeared from that day. 

Lady Bell was jubilant at the issue, and the restoration of 
their comrade, and disposed to crow over Mrs. Sundon. 

“Oh! he is a good sort,” as Miss Kingscote says, con- 
fessed the authority, “he is more generous than his brethren. 
I am thankful to have been of use to him.” This was all 
that Mrs. Sundon said to Lady Bell, but in her own mind 
she reflected with apparent incoherence, “I could wish that 
he had been higher in rank, and Miss Kingscote more pre- 
sentable. I don’t think that his being a little countrified 
would have mattered to her else.” 

As a supplement to all other interests and entertainments, 


i‘8o 


LADY BELL. 


JSIrs. Sundon and Lady Bell had little Caro to play with — to 
plan for with the deepest seriousness, to build castles in the 
air for with the highest hopefulness. 

But Mrs. Sundon was different from many mothers. Mrs. 
Sundon not only did not expect Lady Bell to be engrossed 
with her little daughter, Mrs. Sundon herself would have 
thought it exceedingly ill-judged and ill-bred to bring for- 
ward the child, and cause her to £Q1 the first place in the 
circle, forcing every other interest and satisfaction to give 
way to Caro’s interest and satisfaction. 

No, little Caro, . while she was dearly prized and petted. 
Was kept quite in her proper and purely subordinate sphere, 
and that under wholesome discipline, and was decidedly a 
happier as well as a more modest and artless child then and 
afterwards in consequence of her mother’s public spirit in 
combination with her common sense. 

Mrs. Sundon would not permit Caro, unless it were abso- 
lutely unavoidable, to interfere with a single study or pursuit, 
though the mother cared for the child incessantly, and spared 
no thought or pains upon her, from consecrating to Miss 
Caro’s wardrobe Mrs. Sundon’ s most exquisite needlework, to 
being the child’s first teacher in health, and nurse in sickness. 
Mrs. Sundon would not allow Caro’s presence in the morning 
room — the company-room of the house, except at stated and 
limited intervals. Mrs. Sundon put an interdict on Caro and 
her nurse being a drag on walking and riding excursions. 

Mrs. Sundon did not carry Caro to any public place what- 
ever, hut did not on that account withdraw from pubKc 
places. Mrs. Sundon had an old-fashioned notion that 
society and her friends had a claim upon her, just as Caro 
had a claim, and though Caro’s claim, as her mother de- 
lighted to acknowledge, was the greater, Mrs. Sundon did 
riot conceive that it ought on that account to swallow up the 
Smaller. Mrs. Sundon sent Caro to bed betimes, and would 


The two friends were ' Bell , and ‘ Sunny,’ like sisters to each other. 



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FRIENDS IN NEED. 


I8l 


not suffer tMs, or other excellent rules tff be infringed on any 
pretence. 

The desirable result was twofold, Caro from her earliest 
infancy was one of the healthiest, most natural, and “ pret- 
tily behaved ” of children. Mrs. Sundon had the reward of 
being assured that the child was regarded by all the friends 
of the family as a boon to be welcomed, and not as a bore or 
plague to be endured. 

So summer suns and winter moons rose and set on the 
house at Summerhill, and the two friends were “Bell” and 
“ Sunny,” like sisters to each other. 

‘ Oh, Bell, this peaceful, rational, God-fearing time is good 
after the distractions of passion and the storms of life,” Mrs. 
Sundon would say, stifling all yearning in her voice, and 
setting her strong will to make the best of the alleviations 
of her lot. 

“Yes, Sunny,” Lady Bell would answer brightly. “I 
get a better gardener every month. Our place will be a 
spectacle next year, onl}^ the French honeysuckle don’t smell 
like our common honeysuckle, exactly as lupins are not 
sweet as blossoming beans. I am improving in my drawing. 
I propose to try painting when the weather will allow. 
Mayne in Lumley is to come out and give me open-air 
lessons. I shall paint our Caro nursing her foot in its red 
shoe under an apple-tree — ^you shall see what you shall see. 
But now I must tie on my hood, and run down the lane to 
Goody Amos’s, with the plaster for her burn. Don’t forget 
that there is a’ puppet-show in the town-hall, which we pro- 
mised to attend this afternoon, before drinking a dish of tea, 
and staying for a bit of supper with Captain Craddock and 
Ms wife.”. 

Yery busy was Lady Bell — the true secret of happiness. 
Yet, walking home that same evening, escorted by the gal- 
lant Captain and the Summerhill man with a lantern, Lady 


i 82 


LADY BELL. 


Bell fell. Iseliind Mrs. Sundon and her cavalier, and began 
dreaming under tbe stars. 

The dreams were not in the style of Dr. Young, though 
Lady Bell had been lately reading his “ Night Thoughts,” 
and admiring them greatly as everybody admired them then. 

The dreams implied rather a vague sense of waiting and of 
want, and of stirring in the unfathomable depths even of a 
girl’s nature. Was unruffled tranquillity, after all, the secret 
of life’s best fulfilment ? — whether was it worse to have been 
torn by warring passions like Mrs. Sundon, or that passion 
should never be awakened in the dead calm within ? Might 
not the last be a greater loss to Lady Bell than the first had 
proved to her friend ? 

Was Lady Bell to pass through life and have adventures, 
be sad and glad, poor and in comparative affluence, friend- 
less and with many friends, a wife and a widow, and her 
heart still remain void of a history ? 


OHAPTEE XXrV. 


BOW BELLS AND THE FAMILY IN CLEYELAND COTJET. 

gELL,” said Mrs. Sundon one morning, looking up from a 
letter which, she had been reading, “here is something 
for you. The Sundons of Sundon Grreen, who have always 
been on good terms with me, write to invite us to pay them 
a visit in town, as they have taken a house in Cleveland 
Court, St. James’s, for the winter and spring. What have I 
to do with town sights and gaieties till' Caro is a finished 
young lady ? But your day is only beginning. This invi- 
tation is the very thing for you, since I hate to think of you 
being moped up here continually.” 

Lady Bell protested that she did not pine for change, and 
that to spend her life with her beloved, excellent, agreeable 
Sunny ought to be more than enough for her, as it would at 
one time have been beyond her wildest wishes. 

But Mrs. Sundon was bent on the change for Lady Bell. 
“You have no friends of your own to take you out,” Mrs. 
Sundon pursued the theme, “ but Lady Sundon will be quite 
pleased and proud to usher into the great world a young lady 
of title above that of a country baronet’s wife. She is a 
worthy, cordial soul, in spite of weakness for rank, and will 
be really kind to you.” 

Lady Bell tried to look indifferent, but her eyes sparkled, 
and Mrs. Sundon was resolute in carrying out the proposal. 


LADY BELL. 


184 

Nevertheless, Lady Bell was sentimental and almost rueful 
the night before she was to start for town, to which happily 
the Mayor of Lumley was bound in order to figure in a depu- 
tation, and Lady Bell with a young waiting -svoman who was 
to be about her person, was to make the journey with the 
Mayor in his semi-official capacity. 

‘‘Caro will have forgotten me in three months,” reflected 
Lady Bell a little disconsolately as she sat idle, for a wonder, 
in the bright, pleasant room. “ Groody Martin may have 
been carried off to a better world with her cough and rheu- 
matism. Master Charles may have got his colours, and have 
marched to t’other end of this world, and been engaged in an 
‘affair,’ as the newspapers call it, like the one at Lexington 
which we were reading of. Your imitation Japan screens 
will be finished, but I shan’t have seen every stage of the 
process.” 

“You won’t miss much there. Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon. 

Lady Bell continued her catalogue. “You will have read 
out Plutarch’s Lives, and I shall not have had the advantage 
of hearing your remarks as you went along. The spring 
will have come back, and be well established, but I shall 
have taken a leap over the first snowdrops, crocuses, prim- 
roses, and violets. I wonder if I shall gain enough to make 
up for the loss ? I begin to wonder even if I shall be per- 
mitted to come back, and find everything as I left it here, 
after I have been so mad as to quit, of my own free will, our 
dear, sweet home ? ” 

“It is not in that you need fear change,” asserted Mrs. 
Sundon cheerfully, “if you come back to us unchanged 
yourself. Bell, that is the question,” 

“ Oh, as to that there is no fear,” declared Lady Bell con- 
fidently, recovering her spirit. “I must ever be true to 
Summerhill. But ah. Sunny ! ” she relaps'ed the next mo- 
ment, “ we have been so happy here — so much happier than 


THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT. 185 

I ever was before. Does it not seem doubtful whether the 
same happiness can be again in this troublous world ? ” 

“ K not the same, then let us trust that there may be hap- 
piness of another kind to supply the place of the past hap- 
piness,” Mrs. Sundon encouraged the girl. ‘‘ Come, Bell, I 
will not have you low on this our last night.” 

Lady Bell forgot all her forebodings when she found her- 
self drawing near to London again. 

A hundred years ago, when communication was slow and 
difficult, and knowledge little spread, the civilisation of the 
coimtry centered peculiarly in the capital. It was the source 
of every public movement, the winter seat of the court, the 
high place of noble and splendid society, the chosen resort of 
wisdom, wit, learning, and accomplishments under every guise. 
It had its gross evils, no doubt, but so great were its counter- 
balancing advantages and its general irresistible fascination, 
that even the most modest and sober moralists and philoso- 
phers, of all ages and both sexes, sighed longingly to enjoj’^ 
the benefits and charms of town life. 

And Lady Bell was town bred. The very smoke smelt 
sweet, and the cries sounded melodious to her ears. 

“ Oh, sir ! ” she addressed the Mayor as they were drawing 
near the great city, while she was unable to resist putting 
her head out of the coach windows. “ Let us try to catch the 
first sound of Bow bells ; let us make my woman Eogers hear 
them. They do jingle so tunefully, one cannot wonder that 
they caused Whittington to return, even without the cat.” 

Lady Bell’s arrant native propensity for the life, the stir, 
and the variety of the town, had only been subdued into a 
grateful, intelligent acknowledgment that the country also 
had its charms, it was not routed out of her. She was in- 
clined to return to her first love. 

Then, to add to ' the gladness of Lady Bell’s return, she 
was coming back under different and happier auspices. In- 


i86 


LADY BELL. 


stead of the helpless, penniless child, driven off to the cold 
welcome of St. Bevis’s, Lady Bell was an independent 
woman ; and though she was not a rich young widow, as 
Messrs. Grreenwood and Sneyd had once hoped for her, she 
was a young widow, with a modest but sufficient jointure, 
going to her friend’s friends, who were to consider it a credit 
and satisfaction to entertain her. 

The members of the Sundon family, who were in Cleve- 
land Court, St. James’s, were Sir Peter and Lady Sundon 
and her two stepdaughters. The only son of the family was 
a boy at school. 

Sir Peter was sixty -four, lank and lantern-jawed, and ailing, 
as his appearance betokened. He had come up to town to be 
under some of the medical faculty there. 

Lady Sundon was fifty-five, as hale as Sir Peter was the 
reverse, one of those hearty, brisk women who did not 
require rouge, she was so rosy in her matronly roundness of 
cheek ; and did not want a stick, or the page’s arm, she was 
still so active in her fulness of figure. 

The Misses Sundon were between twenty and thirty, daugh- 
ters of Sir Peter by a former marriage ; while the son and 
heir was Lady Sundon’s only child. The Misses Sundon 
were young women to whom it seemed a matter of necessity 
to wear the highest heads and heels of the period, in order to 
lend distinction to their poverty of form and general colour- 
lessness. 

“You’ll be after the sights. Lady Bell,” said Sir Peter at 
supper. “ Ah ! they ain’t worth the trouble and fatigue they 
give you,” he ended, shaking his head, as he called the grapes 
sour which he could no longer reach. 

“Bother! Sir Peter,” cried Lady Sundon, “to go and 
daunt my Lady Bell, and she as fresh as a daisy, and as 
nimble as a young colt. I’ll warrant she’U be up to aU the 
racketing, from the Queen’s caudle-drinking to the opening 


THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT. 1 87 

of Ranelagh., which, we can cram into the next two or three 
months.” 

‘‘Not so had as that, Lady Sun don,” said Lady Bell; 
“ but though I’ve seen the sights, save it may he the newest, 
I confess I’ve come up to try a taste of town gaieties 
again.” 

“And do you think such a fine yoimg woman as you are 
will he let off with a taste, even if that were to content you, 
when every maccaroni left will he wild to make you take 
your fill of pleasure.” 

“La ! Lady Sundon,” interposed Miss Lyddy Sundon, who, 
in company with her sister, was as die-away as her step- 
mother was jolly, that they might thus establish a claim to 
refinement and a presumptive case of superficial grievance, 
against Lady Sundon. For somebody had impressed upon the 
young women, that there must be hardships where there 
were step -relations, and Miss Lyddy and her sister had lan- 
guidly taken up the idea as a source of interest which could 
not otherwise be found in their ordinary persons, characters, 
and prosperous lot. ‘ ‘ Who would care for such rude draughts ? 
Only a milkmaid or a ploughman could stand them. Polite 
people like Lady Bell soon .have enough.” 

“A fig for your philosophy, Lyddy,” protested the elder 
woman ; “I never saw you abstemious in your draughts, and 
sure I never stint you. As for milkmaids, young women are 
very much alike, whether they be milkmaids or countesses, I 
take it — no offence, Lady Bell. I do love a noble name and 
a title, all the same.” 

“ There is no offence,” Lady Bell replied with a smile. 

While Miss Lyddy insinuated a word of hurt feehngs — “ I 
wish your ladyship would explain what you mean b^ not see- 
ing me abstemious in my draughts. I hope I know what a 
delicate woman owes to her nerves.” 

“Sister,” — ^Miss Sundon soothed the injured fine lady 


LADY BELL. 


1 88 

solemnly, — Lady Sundon does not mean to speak unkind. 
She knows that we take after our papa, and have not her 
rude health and high spirits, which make her love her joke 
to the degree that she may certainly mislead Lady Bell 
Trevor.” 

“ Oh dear, no,” denied Lady Sundon with careless candour, 
‘‘Lady Bell can see for herself that you are two poor crea- 
tures not able for much, though after all you are fit for more 
than you think for, only you have got it into your heads that 
it is not tonish to be natural and merry as grigs, which I 
was when I was like you. But it is all fudge, and you are 
clean out there, as Lady Bell can tell you, and as I could 
have told you myself if you would have listened to me. Ain’t 
the great ladies madder than the country lasses ? Han’t I 
seen, since I came to town, when I had ridden out to Twicken- 
ham, her Grrace of Devonshire marching in regimentals at the 
head of a company of fencibles ? Now, I ain’t so bad as that. 
Sir Peter,” Lady Sundon challenged her valetudinarian 
husband. 

“No, nor need be, my lady, so long as my bridle is on 
your neck,” retorted Sir Peter dryly. 

“You must have mistook,” n^aintained the two Misses 
Sundon in a breath; “her Grace could never have done 
anything half so shocking. What ! march miles on a filthy 
miry road, in the company of hundreds of common men, 
followed up by the rag, tag and bob-tail of their wives and 
children; having no rest or refreshment, unless she could 
swig her can of ale with the fellows at the ale-house doors !” 

“I ain’t mistaken— I can credit my own eyes,” — Lady 
Sundon kept her point, — “ and to march in regimentals, with 
a regiment of common men as honest as their betters, was 
none so shocking, after the stories I have heard told of card- 
playing on Sunday evenings, Sir Peter, of masquerading, of 
appointments in Belsize Park, of Fleet marriages — Parlia- 


THE FAMILY IN CLEVELAND COURT. 189 

ment liatli forbidden tbe last — ^you bave lost that chance, 
girls.” 

“Madam, would you ever liken us to it ?” gasped tbe step- 
daughters. 

“ Polly, your tongue wags too freely,” remonstrated her 
husband, “ and I won’t have you run Lady Bell and the girls 
off their feet. Besides, what is to become of me ? ” he asked 
in a dolorous tone ; “ am I to be left to Jebb’s gallipots and 
James’s powders, while you are frisking about all day and all 
night ? Is that what you call acting the part of a good wife, 
and training up these daughters of ours in the way they 
should g€ ?” 

“ Oh, no fears — no fears of you, above all, my dear,” Sir 
Peter’s lively helpmate reassured him. “ You’ll be seen to, 
whatever comes of it. Were you ever forgotten ? Indeed, 
to suppose so, is the unkindest cut you’ve given me and the 
girls this age.” And then, failing to be cut by the cut. Lady 
Sundon proceeded to plan a party of pleasure. 


CHAPTEE XXV. 


A GAT YOUNG MADAM. 



;TH so liglit-liearted a head of tlie house, just held in 


' ' check by the mild selfishness of Sir Peter and the mild 
grumbling of his daughters, Lady Bell could not have a dull 
time of it during her stay in town. 

No doubt there were the drawbacks which are inevitable 
in life, and which make the realisation of our dearest wishes 
fall short of the expectation. 

There was the tender pang with which Lady Bell, having 
hurried to the spot on the first opportunity, looked on the 
outside of her old home. Lady Lucie’s lodgings in Bruton 
Street, occupied by strangers. 

There was the pensive wonder and regret with which, for- 
getting the changes in herself. Lady Bell found that even a 
few years had been able to make havoc in Lady Lucie’s circle ; 
so many of the members were old, like Lady Lucie, and had 
soon followed her in death; while the younger individuals, 
engrossed with their personal cares, had all but forgotten 
little Lady Bell, who had so faithfully remembered them, 
and met her again with the indifference of exhausted 
acquaintance. 

Strange moving vicissitudes had overtaken some of the old 
familiar figures. 

But though they startled and affected Lady Bell for the 


A GAy YOUNG MADAM. 


191 

moment, the victims had not been so much to her, that their 
memory should continue to weigh upon her mind, and the 
blanks which their absence made, at first, were soon amply 
supplied. 

Ill like manner, if the very topics of conversation were 
changed, and nobody seemed to remember the old Princess 
of Wales’s death, or the failure of Pordyce’s Bank, Lady Bell 
could catch the new cue and speak of the American war with 
the best. 

The Sundons, of Sundon Green, were people of good 
account in their own county. Sir Peter, invalided though he 
was, had considerable political influence in the heat of the 
strife raging between Tory and Whig. 

Lady Sundon was generally popular, even among more 
fastidious and exacting people. Her good-humoured blithe- 
ness, dashed with coarseness and worldly-mindedness, had 
the manifest advantage that it did not rank high enough 
among the virtues to form a reproach to the halting virtue of 
anybody. 

But Lady Bell possessed in herself, independent of her host 
and hostess, almost all the elements calculated to insure a 
season’s success. She was a complete novelty, appearing at 
her age, after years of rustication. She had the benefit of 
acknowledged birth and breeding, to which Lady Sundon led 
the way, in paying open, honest enough homage, as she 
frankly confessed herself Lady Bell’s social inferior, while 
she displayed as frankly her pride in taking Lady Bell about. 
Above all. Lady Bell was lovely, with a dainty, arch loveliness, 
which her youthful widowhood rendered peculiarly piquant. 

• The presence of the Misses Sundon in Lady Bell’s company 
was simply the putting of two foils beside the little lady, 
while the foils were useful in dividing responsibility with 
her, and in rendering her security doubly secure. 

Lady Bell was not rich to bribe suitors, but she was so far 


192 


LADY BELL. 


well off as to make tke pursuit of ker, regarding her merely 
as an object of attraction and fashion, comparatively safe to 
the gallant fops, wits, and idle men of wealth and rank 
lounging or rioting through the hours, and ever ready to 
welcome a fresh interest. 

As it happened, just at that moment, a belle’s throne was 
vacant, after the conjoint reign of the three great belles of 
late Basons. 

Lady Mary Somerset was swiftly paying the penalty of a 
“wasp waist,” and sickening to death under the burden of 
the honours of the Marchioness of G-ranby. 

Lady Harriet Stanhope had become Lady Harriet Poley, 
ind was on the way with her husband to Newmarket and 
•uin. 

Of Lady Betty Compton, whose style and title remained 
mchanged, it might be alleged, much as it was said with 
regard to Aristides the Just, that the fashionable world had 
waxed weary of the name and fame of Lady Betty Compton. 

Poolish Lady Betty ! she ought to have inaugurated a 
change of some kind betimes, and married or died after the 
example of her sister queens, for there is nothing so mer- 
curial as the wind of opinion which brings about the instal- 
lation or deposition of such an airy sovereign. 

And now Lady Bell Trevor grew the rage until she was as 
universal a toast in town as she had been in humble provincial 
circles. 

There is no denying that Lady Bell enjoyed her success, 
and the writing of it to Mrs. Sundon, in the most off-hand, 
unsophisticated manner. 

The pleasures of the town, which might be vapid and 
worse — ^tainted to more thoughtful, experienced people, were 
very fresh and sparkling to Lady Bell ; she found a thousand 
things to engage and delight her at tho opera, the play- 
houses, the Court revisited, the ridottos, the private assem- 


A GAY YOUNG MADAM. 


193 


blies. It was no trouble and distress, but great pleasure to 
her to pay visits, attend auctions, and go a-shopping three 
mornings out of four. It was so entire a change, though it 
was like native air, that she returned to it with renewed zest. 
She might, probably she would, tire of it after a time, but 
she could not tire of it very soon. 

And Lady Bell found it highly agreeable to be followed, 
besieged, even persecuted by the attentions of those men, 
some of them distinguished — ^whether for good or evil, or 
both, as elegant scholars, as daring travellers, as dead shots 
(when the game was not shy partridges or timid deer, but 
fellow-men, • scowling in deadly enmity, pistol in hand, at 
twelve paces distance), as bold riders, and betters, and three- 
bottle men who, drunk or sober, could remain masters of the 
situation, and make themselves listened to in the House, 
and out of it, compared to the least brilliant of whom Master 
Charles of Nutfield was but a comely, kindly rustic and 
ignoramus. 

The great proportion of these men were little in earnest in 
their adulation ; but Lady Bell was quite aware of the fact, and 
did not mind it. Her own heart was not touched ; she could 
meet her admirers on equal terms, and like a child playing 
with fire, she feared no danger. She liked, though it meant 
next to nothing, to be besieged for her hand in a minuette or 
a cotillon, for the honour of serving her with tea in the box 
of a coffee-room after the opera or the theatre, or of handing 
her to Lady Sundon’s coach. She did not object to being 
spoken to, albeit the terms were exaggerated, of the felicity 
of being in her presence, and the despair of feeling her 
absence. She did not believe it, of course, but it was a little 
intoxicating at the same time. 

Lady Sundon, who had not enjoyed any reflected triumphs 
on her stepdaughters’ account, was in the greatest glee at 
being chaperon to so favoured a young lady. 

9 O 


194 


LADY BELL. 


Mrs. F iindon, who had been brought up to the contem- 
plation of these triumphs, considered them quite legitimate, 
and viewed them as the necessary finish to the rearing of a 
woman of quality, and the mode by which her future was 
most frequently rounded oiff and settled. 

Lady Bell could have got into almost any set. Though she 
had no claims to dabbling in literature, she would have been 
granted admittance to the assemblies of the blues — in the 
drawing-rooms of Lady Charleville, Mrs. Boscawen, and the 
great Mrs. Montague. But the truth wag that Lady Bell did 
not altogether appreciate classical poses and coquettings with 
the muse, and did not care for the fine gentlemen who were so 
sensitive about her reading their poems, and the great ladies 
who were so fond of hearing themselves speak. 

Lady Bell had once taken a prominent part in an election, 
yet she was as guileless as most young women of eighteen 
of comprehending or caring for politics, unless, indeed, they 
bore on such sentimental, sensational questions as the im- 
prisonment of the Queen of Denmark — the marriage of the 
Pretender — or Lord Mansfield’s decision that no slave could be 
sent back from England to the chain and the lash of a task- 
master. Still, that trifling deficiency might not have pre- 
vented her from entering the ranks of the fair enthusiasts, 
who, in the vacancy or the usurped possession of heart and 
mind, and in the craving for excitement which circumstances 
fostered, were already short-sighted partisans and reckless 
agitators for and against American independence, in sym- 
pathy with or in hostility to French philosophers. Lady 
Bell would have proved an invaluable acquisition even to the 
sisters Devonshire and Duncannon and to Mrs. Crew, who 
would have opened their exclusive arms to her, for they for- 
got to be rivals in their feiwent worship at the one shrine of 
their half-splendid, half-brutified idol, who could guide alike 
a steed and a state. 


A GAY YOUNG MADAM. 


. 195 

But Lady Bell shrank from the wild devotion to the huff 
and the blue, or to any other colour of the rainbow. She 
contented herself with marvelling at Anne, Duchess of 
Northumberland, haranguing the populace from a window 
in Covent Garden, on the election of her brother-in-law, 
Lord Percy, and with freely owning that this performance 
far surpassed any of her. Lady Bell Trevor’s, election 
achievements. 

Lady Bell was too young, too pretty, and at once too rich 
and too poor, to take to the card-tables, which were still 
more enthralling than the hustings to their votaries, and 
which were the conspicuous accompaniments of every enter- 
tainment. She might have had gambling in her blood, 
through her relationship to Squire Godwin, but her life at 
St. Bevis’s and Mrs. Sundon’s experience had destroyed the 
constitutional predilection. 

Lady Bell was instinctively wise in not allying herself so 
closely to any circle as to shut herself out from others, and 
in preferring to shine as a charming visitor to each in turn. 
By this species of discretion, as much as by her graces. 
Lady Bell won the approbation of the master of assemblies 
to aristocratic ‘London, whose notice was honour, and his 
approbation the seal of taste. The exquisite rattling-boned, 
grimacing Mr. Walpole condescended to commend her, asked 
to be presented to her, found out she was his cousin a hun- 
dred times removed, and graciously invited her to the next 
theatrical representations at Strawberry Hill. 


CHAPTEE XXVI. 


MAKING AN ACQTJAINTAlfCE AT THE PANTHEON. 

BELL was with, the Sundons at the Pantheon, which 



was in winter what ‘‘ dear delightful Eanelagh” was in 
its season, to every town letter-writer of the generation. 

Here too was to he met a considerable amount of pictur- 
esqueness, variety, and freedom in an age which alternated 
between excessive ceremonial and hursts of license. All the 
world could go to the Pantheon as to Eanelagh, and, if in 
consequence there were, on the one hand, greater openings 
to folly and vice, there were, on the other, better provisions 
for rational and innocent pleasure, than in more private and 
restricted places of entertainment. ' 

The women who groaned under the barbarous encum- 
brances and entanglements of ruffled sacques, and immensely 
high and extravagant dressed “heads,” at other fashionable 
gatherings, could come in an elegant undress to the Pan- 
theon as well as to Eanelagh, walk about, listen to concerts, 
and form little social parties in the underground tea-room. 
There was a charming demi-toilette for such places, of gowns 
with worked neckerchiefs, and little hats over the hair, hang- 
ing down in curls upon the shoulders. While the use of this 
privilege at a resort rendered so brilliant, was not held to 
preclude distinctive touches of gay knots of ribands, fans, and 
sparkling jewels. 


MAKING AN ACQUAINTANCE. 


197 


Tlie gentlemen were not permitted the same relaxation 
in their obligations. They must have the triangular hats 
mostly carried under the arm when the hair was fully 
powdered, the silk stockings, and the lace cravats. None save 
(fefiant bucks of high rank ventured to violate the traditions 
of the Pantheon or Eanelagh by presenting themselves in 
morning buckskins and short coats. 

Lady Bell and the Sundons had arrived too early. Lady 
Sundon having a country mania for being in time at public 
places, to have collected any stray members of what Lady 
Sundon called Lady Bell’s ‘‘pack.” 

The party with their single male attendant, a hobble-de- 
hoy nephew of Sir Peter’s, had gone down-stairs to pass the 
interval in drinking tea, till the main body of the company 
should arrive, and the tuning of the musical instruments end. 
As other first comers followed the Sundons’ example. Lady 
Sundon kept on the out-look to hail acquaintances. 

Lady Bell was resting and anticipating, with lips apart 
and a flickering smile, what hero of her train would turn up 
soonest. 

Miss Sundon was pensively helping Miss Lyddy Simdon to 
the last maccaroon, on which the hobble-de-hoy squire had 
cast a covetous eye, and remarking with a sigh, “Sister, we 
need not have been so hurried as to take away the little 
appetites we have, scarcely a soul is to be seen. I under- 
stand it is the correct thing not to come till near ten o’clock. 
But you and I must do as we are bidden.” 

“And a good thing for you too, girls,” proclaimed Lady 
Sundon in her slightly view-halloo voice. “What! wait till 
near ten and miss all the company coming^ the best part of' 
the pleasure, and the half of the concert — though I can’t say 
I care for their ItaKan squalling ; give me one of Lady Bell’s 
lessons on the spinnet, or a good English chorus. But my 
likings are neither here nor there. And no, say I, I shan’t 


LADY BELL. 


198 

be cheated of half my treat, such as it is. There is somebody 
I ought to know. Heyday ! it is my own cousin Harry Eane, 
come up from his ship at Portsmouth.” 

Lady Sundon whisked off her seat, unimpeded by her size 
or her years, as if she had been a girl of sixteen, and favoured 
by the thinness of the company, succeeded in overtaking and 
tapping with her fan the shoulder of a gentleman in blue 
and white uniform, whom she arrested in his course, and 
brought back with her, as a reward of virtue and early habits. 

“See what I’ve got by coming betimes, girls; sure, we 
might never have set eyes on each other if the rooms had 
been full,” Lady Sundon cried exultingly, and then she 
rattled on in one long sentence, with breaks for breath. 
“You know my stepdaughters, Harry, and this is Lady Bell 
Trevor, a friend of Mrs. Sundon, of Chevely (at least, she 
used to be of Chevely, poor soul ! before Greg Sundon went 
all to the dogs), who does us the honour of being with us this 
winter. All agog Lady Bell keeps us, I can tell you, so that 
neither she, nor we, can get peace for you men.” 

“Pray don’t give me so bad a character, madam,” objected 
Lady Bell demurely. 

“It has been the same tune,” maintained Lady Sundon, 
“ since she was Lady Bell Etheredge, Earl Etheredge’s 
daughter (I hope you are up in your peerage, Harry), she 
had to marry old Squire Trevor, for peace, when she was a 
chit of fifteen, but he is dead, and she is as bad as ever.” 

“ Do you mean to fright your cousin, till he refuse to be 
presented to me. Lady Sundon ? ” Lady Bell cut short the 
tale of her conquests. 

“ He ain’t such a lubberly coward as to deprive himself of 
what blue jackets, as well as red coats, are fighting for; if 
he were, he should get no harbour from me. Lady Bell 
Trevor, Captain Pane of the Thunderhomb . He may pull a 
long face at our frivolity, and pretend to find fault with us 


MAKING AN ACQUAINTANCE. 


199 


for being children playing with toys, but be is not such 
a bad fellow at bottom — as some of these misanthropes — 
misogynists, what-d’ye-call-’ems.’^ 

“I am obliged to you. for the character of a sage, cousin,” 
replied the gentleman with perfect gravity, “Lady Bell 
Trevor, will you permit me, so soon after being introduced, 
to take the liberty of pitying you, if my cousin is serious in 
her account.” 

“ A humorist,” Lady BeU commented to herself under her 
breath, “ an animal that I detest, though I understand my 
dear Mrs. Sundon has rather a fancy for the species — there 
is no accounting for tastes — neither is the specimen handsome 
to excuse him for any form of conceit. I dare say he is clever 
in some dry disagreeable way.” 

Captain Fane of the TJmnderloml), thus apostrophized and 
reviewed by bright keen eyes, was a young man of twenty- 
eight years. Although he was not strictly handsome, he had 
a good figure which his naval uniform set off, and his face — 
with a thick cogitative nose, a wrinkle between the eyebrows, 
and a tendency to squareness in the jaws — was lit up by a 
pair of fine eyes, and a pleasantness in his smile when he did 
smile, which was rather too seldom. 

Captain Fane accepted Lady Sundon’s invitation to join 
her party ; he was on very good terms with his cousin, though 
she announced to Lady Bell, “he takes me off at no allow- 
ance,” and in accordance with this communication Lady 
Sundon was continually nodding her head, and snapping her 
fan in mock agreement with, or smart protest at. Captain 
Fane’s strictures. 

The gentleman was indemnifying himself for his concession 
to kindred feminine influence by the private reflection, 

“ Here is a fine lady of fashion whom my ‘merry wife ’ of a 
cousin has bagged by some chance. I’d better improve the 
opportunity of studying the latest shore and town follies, , 


200 


LADY BELL. 


grafted on a woman’s wilfnlness and caprice. Heartless 
young dowager (why, she looks little more than a child !) to 
have married an ‘ old Squire Trevor ’ and buried him to boot, 
and to be looking out for his successor, I warrant, with what 
she’s been cunning enough to secure of the defunct Squire’s 
goods. It is a bad, as well as a mad world, my masters, but 
of all things I can’t abide an artful young woman, and this 
one looks so artless (which makes the art much worse) in the 
middle of her airs and graces.” 

Harry don’t think we women have a pinch of sense,” 
Lady Sundon was saying, “ besides the five senses we can’t 
help having. As for him, I tell him that except that he’s as 
sober as a judge (and he a sailor !), and is fond of books and 
instruments, having his cabin fitted up with them like a 
pedagogue’s den, he’s a regular chip of some of the horrid 
old woman-hating admirals. You are a woman of spirit, 
Lady BeU. I do wish that you would serve it out to him, or 
take him in hand and do something to improve him.” 

‘‘Pardon me. Lady Sundon, I have neither time nor 
talent in that way,” Lady Bell excused herself with one 
of her aiis, not approving of this proposal on so short an 
acquaintance, to -the cynical, saucy fellow’s face. 

“ And I should not be worth the trouble. Lady BeU,” the 
gentleman hastened to explain, “I am afraid that I am in- 
corrigible to any fair, fine lady’s pains.” 

Though neither of them exactly meant it, they were both 
so disdainful, that it was a good deal like fiinging down 
gauntlets on the first brush of their introduction — a mutual 
challenge, which was so far owing to Lady Sundon’s blun- 
dering cordiality. 

“ Oh ! not so bad as that, Harry,” exclaimed the good lady, 
who really liked her cousin, as she liked pickles or the pre- 
served ginger, with regard to which he had once been so 
mindful as to bring her a jar from the West Indies, “I am 


MAKING AN ACQUAINTANCE. 


20 I 


quite convinced, Lady Bell, that he needs only to he smiled 
and frowned upon by one of our sex, and to hang on our 
smiles and tremble at our frowns, to be properly humbled, 
and made a mighty agreeable fellow of.” 

“Indeed, ma’am;” answered Lady Bell, in a tone which 
sounded very much as if she had said, “He may, or he may 
not ; I am sure I don’t care.” 

“You are wrong, cousin,” replied Captain Fane quickly, 
“I don’t pretend to be worse or better than my neighbours, 
certainly ; but I do profess that where neither my judgment 
nor my conscience is addressed, I am not particularly sus- 
ceptible to the wiles either of smiles or frowns, or for that 
matter of tears.” 

“ Oh, you wretch ! ” cried out even the Misses Sundon. 

“ Why, what would you have ? ” remonstrated Captain 
Fane; “you ladies must submit to the fact that there are 
some ill-conditioned rebels against the rule of blandish- 
ments, while sea-horses of all horses are the worst to tame. 
However, a truce to me and my nature, a monstrously unin- 
teresting subject to introduce. Lady Sundon, what have you 
been doing with yourself lately?” 

“ Oh, we have been doing what we could when Sir Peter 
would spare us, so as to make the town and society the better 
even for my blowsy phiz ; but I’ve had my day, Harry, I’ve 
had my day. We’ve seen Mr. Garrick take leave of the 
stage in the Wonder^ and the new Italian singer — what’s-his- 
name — make his first appearance in Artaxerxes. We’ve 
heard Dr. Dodd preach in aid of the society for the recovery 
of the drowned, and been present at one of Madam Monta- 
gue’s dinners to the chimney-sweeps. We’ve walked in the 
Mall and Kensington Gardens whenever the sun would keep 
us in countenance, which was not too often, when the sulky 
rogue let the Thames be froze at Mortlake during the late 
ffl.11 of snow. We’ve been both to the Queen’s House and 


202 


LADY BELL. 


the Mansion House, and to ever so many dinners and routs. 
WeVe even had our share of the new sickness, the influenza, 
which is all the vogue, though we could have dispensed with 
that token of fashion. I could not tell you all that we’ve 
been and done. Cousin Harry.” 

‘‘I think you’ve told me pretty well. Cousin Sundon,” 
quoth Harry. ‘‘I almost hesitate to propose that you should 
take a stroll, you must all be so knocked up ; no wonder that 
Miss Sundon and Miss Lyddy look as if a breath of air would 
blow them away.” 

“ A fiddlestick for their being blown away ! They’re quite 
hearty if they would only think it. Lady Bell makes no 
complaint, and she is always as fresh as paint when a new 
pleasure is spoke of. She is something like a girl ; I have 
no patience with girls being vapoured, sir, it is • a reproach 
on you men, if you understood it. Grirls were different when 
I was young, and I ain’t vapoured now that I am old. If 
you were to cut and shuffle in a hornpipe, like a Jack tar on 
the boards, I could caper the steps of ‘ Joan Saunderson ’ or 
‘ Nancy Dawson ’ back again. Since you won’t, let us go the 
round, and see and be s^p. by all means ; what is life without 
a bit of pleasure ? ” 


OHAPTEE XXVn. 


OPINIONS DIPPEB. 

the party went up-stairs, and strolled about amongst 
other animated groups, admiring what were reckoned 
the Gothic proportions of the Pantheon, listening to the 
rising strains of the orchestra, which still admitted the ring 
of laughing voices — ^buxom Lady Sundon grew radiant. 
“ Now, ain’t this nice, Harry ? ” she demanded triumphantly ; 
“ ain’t it something to come on shore for — worth years of the 
sloppy, draggle-tailed country ? ” 

As to nice, the word is too vague. I’d as lief not pledge 
myself to what you mean by nicenesS;” he told her; “and I 
own to being rather fonder of green fields than filthy streets, 
after a long tack of blue waves.” 

“But this ain’t filthy streets, Harry. Now, I shall think 
you right down cross and contrary, if you refuse to a^it 
that the Pantheon, at least, takes your fancy.” 

“ Then, not to mortify you, madam, the Pantheon itself 
is not half so silly or so bad as many places of public and 
private entertainment that I’ve been to in my life. If I were 
to stay on shore, and in London, I should not mind coming 
sometimes to the Pantheon.” 

“I dare say you shouldn’t — ^your humble servant, Harry, 
for the condescension ! ” 

“ Especially if I were to come across such a man as Admiral 


204 


LADY BELL. 


Byron,” continued Captain Fane, bowing low to a bluff, 
elderly gentleman in passing. “He played tbe man when 
be was no more tban a middy, young sir ” — Captain Fane 
pointed tbe application by looking over bis shoulder and 
addressing Sir Peter’s nepbew, walking between tbe Misses 
Sundon, and instantly beginning to swell witb wratb because 
bis tender years were binted at — “He was a castaway on a 
South Sea Island, and be managed to survive five years of hard- 
ship unparalleled in our day, among savages. There is some- 
body to look at, worth a hundred of your beaux and belles.” 

“And ba’nt I stared tbe man out,” declared Lady 
Sundon, “till be thinks there’s a hole in his epaulette, or a 
paper pinned on his back?” 

“ It isn’t the luck of every one to be a castaway on a South 
Sea Island, and to learn a lesson from savages,” said Lady 
Bell. “Beaux and belles can’t help their want of luck. 
You should be fair. Captain Fane.” 

“I’ll try. Lady Bell,” he promised, “if you’ll point out to 
me one man or woman of your fine fashionables — remember, 
I don’t say civilians, I hope I’m not such a swaggering fire- 
eater as to confine merit to one or both of the services— who, 
in his or her different circumstances, has shown half the 
ingenuity and energy, not to say resignation, which my 
friend the Admiral was privileged, as you put it not incor- 
rectly, to display.” 

•Oh, come, sir ! ” cried Lady Bell with spirit, dropping her 
assumption of meekness, “ I shall not have far to seek to con- 
fute your argument, and I shall take a woman in order to 
cover you with confusion. True, I don’t say she has kindled 
a fire with fiints, or dug up roots with her fingers, or knocked 
down birds with a stick ; but I conclude that you — an edu- 
cated gentleman — consider ingenuity and energy may be 
well bestowed in other respects than in relieving mere gross, 
bodily wants.” 


OPINIONS DIFFER. 


205 


grant you that, Lady Bell.” 

Do you see the lady in the silver gauze ? — not there, and 
that is not silver gauze, that is white brocade, while the 
wearer is only charming Lady Hesketh. No, here, the 
slight young lady in the silver gauze, with the fine hair in a 
wave above her forehead, and the high aquiline nose — do you 
know what she is famous for ?” 

‘‘ No ; I must admit my ignorance.” 

“ Not for her beauty, although you may see she is 
beautiful ; not for being gallant G-eneral Conway’s daughter ; 
not even for being wife to my Lord Milton’s son, who has the 
finest wardrobe in London — finer even than thirty thousand 
a year will stand, folks swear ; for men can be as vain as 
women sometimes, and a great deal more reckless in their 
vanity. But Mrs. Darner puts on a mob cap and canvas 
apron, and with those little white hands wields mallet and 
chisel, as well as moulds in wax and clay. She hath done 
groups of animals as true as life, and busts of men and 
women — their speaking images. She is a great sculptor, sir, 
such as Mr. Bacon or Mr. Nollekens. What do you say to 
that?” Lady Bell wound up her peroration by making a 
profound curtsey. 

'‘It is all gospel, Harry,” Lady Sun don confirmed the 
account. " They tell me that pretty stylish woman is so far 
left to herself that she likes nothing better than muddling 
among wet blocks and splinters of stone, and hewing Hfc^ay 
like any stonemason.” 

“I stand corrected,” admitted Harry Fane honestly, 
addressing himself to Lady Bell. “ I honour the lady both 
for her capacity and determination.” 

“And I can assure you, sir, she is not the only woman 
who deserves your honour for intellect and perseverance,” 
insisted Lady Bell, woman-like, not content with the inch 
conceded, but proceeding to ask a yard. “ Of course it is not 


206 


LADY BELL. 


given to many women to be endowed like Mrs. Darner, but if 
you knew my dear Mrs. Sundon, down at Summerbill, bow 
wise sbe is, bow attentive to all ber duties, bow regular and 
unwearied in ber studies — well ! ” sbe broke off entbusiasti- 
cally, “sbe sbames me into solidity and steadiness. I never 
bave a fit of tbe gapes, and I am in no way flighty wben I 
am witb ber.” 

“ That is a great testimony,” said Captain Fane witb 
grave abstraction, as if be were meditating on tbe force of 
tbe evidence. 

“You provoking man!” Lady Sundon reproached him, 
rapping him across tbe fingers witb ber fan, while Lady Bell bit 
ber lips witb pique, and turned away indignant at being laughed 
at, a process to which sbe was not over much accustomed. 

Lady Bell was too proud to pout, but sbe bad made up ber 
mind that sbe would submit to no more flouting from this 
impertinent, conceited sailor, wben all at once be begged her 
pardon, said penitently and agreeably that Mrs. Sundon was 
at least fortunate in having such an advocate that be could 
take tbe unknown lady’s superiority on trust. 

Lady Bell felt rewarded for ber gallantry in fighting tbe 
bumoursome sailor, wben sbe bad constrained him to soften 
bis looks and tones, and to except not merely Mrs. Sundon 
but herself in bis budget of criticism — if Lady Sundon bad 
let tbe man alone in leaving him to bis better mind, and bad 
notjlby interfering, spoilt all I 

“Mercy on us!” Lady Sundon ejaculated, “wonders will 
never cease ; my polar bear has paid a compliment ! ” 

“Not paid a compliment — ^told a truth,” Captain Fane bad 
condescended to say further, quite graciously. 

“Another, another, Harry! you’re a reformed man on tbe 
spot — see what a pretty woman can do — a bear that has 
changed its skin!” Lady Sundon bad leapt too fast to a 
conclusion. 


OPINIONS DIFFER. 


207 


** I am afraid I must damp your expectation, and shock 
you once more,” alleged Captain Fane, with a perverse 
twinkle in his eyes,' “for I was about to add that if your 
Mrs. Sundon is so wondrous wise a woman, why did she go 
‘in the galley,’ as I have understood she did? I mean, why 
did she throw herself away on so dissipated a man, and so 
inveterate a gambler as Gregory Sundon, of Chevely, whose 
disgrace has been bo manifest and black, that he has been 
suffered to drop clean out of this corrupt enough gay world, 
as well as out of his wife’s offended sight. If she was to be 
particular, she should have begun sooner.” 

“Sir !” replied Lady Bell, with her hot young generosity 
firing up in every word, “I do not pretend to justify my 
friend in every act of her life ; and for the magnanimous faith 
with which she trusted her precious self and her fortune to 
the unhappy husband who failed her, I say nothing, save 
that it ill becomes even so faultless and prudent a man, as I 
do not doubt Captain Fane is, to blame her.” 

“Well said — as good as a play. Lady Bell. Lady Bell, 
I’m proud of you,” protested Lady Sundon. “Hit him hard 
when you’re at it ! Yes, indeed, you’re no better than a 
mean scamp, though you are my own cousin, Harry; and 
I did not think it of you, for all your droll crustiness and 
carping words, till Lady Bell hath opened my eyes — to twit 
a fine woman with her indiscreet tenderness to one of your 
own ungrateful sex — as well kiss and tell. What have you 
to say for yourself? ” 

“ Nothing ! ” answered Harry, with a little shrug of his 
broad shoulders, “ and Lady Bell need not hit harder, seeing 
she has hit hard enough to floor me already. Madam, I was 
wrong to urge such an inconsistency in your friend. It was 
ni done on my part, as you said. I cannot do less than 
make amends to her and to you by saying that I am sorry for 
my unhandsome words.” 


208 


LADY BELL. 


Again Lady Bell was propitiated by a new and rare 
flattery in finding that sbe conld sway and subdue not a 
willing slave, not an indolent, careless adorer, but a restive 
and opinionative man. For here was one wbo might have bad 
tbe misfortune to be a little singular to begin witb, and wbo, 
after bating been confined to sbip-board from cbildbood, 
turned up in tbe smooth, accommodating world, all angles, 
ready-formed prepossessions and prejudices. 

Under tbe subtle incense. Lady Bell looked at her an- 
tagonist more debberately over her fan, and out of a pair 
of eyes analytically inclined. 

Sbe settled that though be was contradictory and a little 
abrupt and harsh in bis contradictions, otherwise be was not 
in tbe least ill-mannered or boorish, but bad altogether the 
air of a gentleman and a man of education, and was thus of 
tbe new school of naval officers. He looked also a man of 
sense, even of some benevolence, when be gave way to her, 
and was so quick and candid in tbe kind of courage which 
confessed even to so small a shortcoming as a mistaken judg- 
ment in conversation. 

As Lady Bell arrived at this improved verdict, tbe music in 
chief began, and tbe party bad to take their seats and listen. 

4 When tbe concert was ended. Lady Bell was accosted and 
monopolized by one after another of her numerous friends, 
danglers, and satellites, until Lady Sundon’s party quitted 
tbe Pantheon. 


OHAPTEE XXYIIL 


BOTJLTON^S COINS AND WEDGWOOD’s DISHES. 

j^^EXT morning Captain Pane called for liis cousins in 
Cleveland Court, to inquire after Sir Peter and propose 
a party wliicli should be a compromise between bis ideas and 
tbeirs. 

“You seem to bave been at so many sights,” Captain 
Fane said, “that there are only one or two left for you to 
see, but as you bave gone hitherto with the multitude, I 
should not wonder though you have, without any blame to 
your judgments, of course, missed some choice exhibitions.’’ 
He addressed Lady Sundon at her fringe-loom and the young 
ladies at their tambour-frames. 

“Now what may they be, Harry? We shall be vastly 
obliged to you for enlightening us.” Her ladyship was open 
to a suggestion. 

“ There are the exhibitions of Mr. Boulton’s new coins, 
medals, and machinery; and there is the show of the new 
Staffordshire ware which men of science and taste are 
flocking to.” 

“ Dear heart alive, are we men of science ? ” remonstrated 
Lady Sundon; “we’ve been to Cox’s museum, where an 
artificial bird sings, and to the place kept by the Swiss in 
King Street, Covent Harden, where the efligy of a boy 
writes, and the effigy of a giid draws, and another effigy of 


210 


LADY BELL. 


a young lady — the marrow of Lyddy there — plays the piano ; 
and that is enough science for me, if indeed, it ain’t the 
black art, which it is uncommonly like. I thought you were 
going to tell of a fresh batch of wild Indians, with their 
paint and war dances ; or of the last caught syren, with her 
gills serving as curls, and a fin rising on the top of her head 
for that matter instead of our present fashionable ‘ heads ’ 
— odd ! ain’t it, that the syrens should have the fashions at 
the bottom of the sea? — or of a new fortune-teller.” 

“ What could put all these fooKsh things into your head, 
my lady ? ” complained Captain Fane. 

“ ‘ These are the least the man can have in his eye,’ I said ‘ 
to myself,” she told him for her explanation. “ I am extra- 
ordinary disappointed. No, sir ; you are a clever dog in 
your way, and not a bad dog at bottom, since your bark is 
worse than your bite, though you have a little of the bulldog 
in you too when your temper is fairly roused, but you have 
no notion how to please and divert ladies, that’s clear.” 

“ Yery likely I have not,” answered Captain Fane a little 
glumly, “but sure I did you no disparagement when I 
evened you to what delights men of parts.” 

“No, indeed. Captain Fane,” spoke up Lady Bell, her 
natural and high-bred sweetness in a ferment at the re- 
ception which had been accorded even by good-natured 
Lady Sundon to the young sailor’s overture, which was a 
little too afTable in its tone, perhaps, but was obliging and 
kindly meant. 

Farther Lady Bell hated to think that Captain Fane 
would suppose women in general, and she in particular, 
had not minds above the vulgar marvels which Lady Sundon 
had quoted. 

“If you will forgive me for saying so. Lady Sundon,” Lady 
Bell gave her opinion, “ you are in the wrong box. All the 
first people in town, ladies as well as gentlemen, are running 


BOULTON AND WEDGWOOD. 


21 I 


to look at tlie medallions and vases. They were inspected h}' 
their majesties in person t’other day, and the Queen gave an 
order for ornaments to the chimney-pieces of her private 
rooms. I know my Mrs. Sundon would not forgive me if I 
returned to the country without having set eyes on these 
works. I don’t pretend to he very wise myself, but I hope I 
have no objection to improving my mind, and that I have 
sufficient patriotism to be proud of the growing manufactures 
of my country.” 

“Upon my word. Lady Bell, you put an old woman to 
shame,” exclaimed Lady Sundon, always ready to admire 
whatever Lady Bell said or did, and yet in earnest in her 
admiration. “Hear her! a young modish beauty evening 
herself to self-improvement and patriotism like any wizened 
bookworm. Have your way, child ; I am sure it is a most 
creditable way, and I am glad Captain Fane has been so 
mindful as to put it in your power. But as I am a score and 
more of years too old for improving my mind or patronising 
my country, and my inclination ain’t in that line, I shall 
devote the morning to dancing attendance on my Sir Peter. 
It will help to keep the poor soul sweet, and gain me liberty 
for some more enticing occasion.”' 

“I think we shall be able to get on without you, 
cousin.” 

“ Gret away with you, fellow. You don’t want a chaperon. 
Lady Bell, you yourself are the most charming chaperon in 
Lon’ on; while poor Nancy and Lyddy there, that are nigh 
ten years older than you, never having had the luck to be 
married, can’t stir abroad without me jogging at their 
elbows ; though, gracious me ! my office is very much a 
sinecure so far as the men are concerned.” 

“Good heavens! Lady Sundon, how can you teU such 
stories about sister’s age and mine ? ” screamed Miss Lyddy. 
“As for men, if we were willing to grin and ogle — ” she bit 


212 


LADY BELL. 


her tongue in time to prevent herself adding, ** and to marry 
men older than our father — ” 

‘‘I don’t know that the grinning would do it, Lyddy,” 
observed the incorrigible Lady Sundon, shaking her head ; 
‘‘you haven’t teeth for grins, neither you nor Nancy, they’re 
too black. But what do you say, girls, about this morning’s 
doings ? Is it to be ‘ hey ! ’ for Lady Bell and cousin Harry, 
with their pots and mugs, or ‘ hey ! ’ for a dosing and darning 
match at home.” 

“Gracious, madam,” interposed Miss Sundon peevishly, 
“how can you phrase it that we should cry ‘hey I ’ for 
anything; though I am certain we are as fond of being 
instructed and entertained as Lady Bell or anybody.” 

“I wish you would look sprightlier about it then, Nancy,” 
recommended Lady Sundon, “for who would come to the 
house, I should like to know, if they were treated to nothing 
but dismals — from Sir Peter’s pains to your and Lyddy’s 
quarrels with the weather for taking your hair out of the 
curl — and not a shade of relief from a joke or laugh to shake 
one’s sides and warm one’s blood like a sip of cherry 
brandy ? ” 

When the party set out. Lady Bell took care to qualify her 
support of the expedition by turning over Captain Pane to 
walk with one of his cousins, while she walked with the other. 
“I am not going to make the man too proud,” reflected Lady 
Bell, with a quiet consciousness that she had it in her power 
to make a man hold up his head among his fellows ; “he is 
saucy enough without that.” 

The mnter weather was passably dry, so that the fact of 
Oxford Street’s not being paved did not matorially interfere 
with the ladies’ comfort. They saw a man in the act of 
being whipped round Covent Garden, but he was not in their 
way. His worship the Mayor’s coach passed them, but they 
were not aware of the circumstance that he had been robbed 


BOULTON AND WEDGWOOD. 


213 


that very morning, in sight of his retinue, at Turnham Green, 
by a single highwayman, who swore that he would shoot 
whoever resisted. Though the knowledge had travelled fast, 
it would not have inflicted qualms even on the Misses 
Sundon, for they were not going out of town. 

The walking party were not so fortunate as to encounter 
the wild Indians, who loomed so largely in Lady Sundon’s 
imagination as one of the sights of London this year; but 
they got a glimpse of Omiah, the native of Otaheite brought 
home by Captain Cook. The drawback was that the inte- 
resting savage was not at the moment in South Sea costume, 
which, perhaps, was not exactly suited to a January day in 
London — on the contrary, he fbrmed a dingy representative 
of an Englishman in a frock and pantaloons. 

In the rooms where were the last clean-cut coinage, the 
casts of figures in metal, the ingenious clocks, and the skeleton 
models of larger machines, which were to turn the world 
upside down, Lady Bell did her best to be interested and 
edified. But after all she found her greatest fascination in 
Captain Pane’s intelligent satisfaction, which stimulated and 
warmed the whole man, so that his incredulity gave way to 
credulity, and in place of sardonic fault-finding he grew, as 
it sounded, quite extravagant in his praise, and became 
boyish in his animation. 

“ These are the marvels of creative mind. Lady Bell. They 
are signs of battles won over the opposing elements. I’d 
liefer fight with air and water for my fellow-creatures than 
fight my fellow-creatures themselves. I’d sooner have been 
Mr. Boulton, of Birmingham, or the grey stooping Scotchman 
his partner, Mr. Watt, who has come up to town about a 
patent, and is standing yonder explaining his pistons and 
valves to a country mechanic, than I would have been 
Admiral Eodney or poor Lord Clive.” 

‘‘Nay, but Captain Pane, without our Admirals and 


214 


LADY BELL. 


Generals where would be the victories of peace objected 
Lady Bell, putting up her little cbin shrewdly. 

“ True, for our comfort,” admitted Captain Bane ; and if 
wishes were horses, beggars would ride. It is one thing to 
command even his Majesty’s flag-ship, and nail the colours 
to the mast if need be, and another to control the elements. 
There were many captains in Syracuse, but only one Archi- 
medes. That spare stooping man is the Archimedes of the 
modern world.” 

‘‘And he hath the air of a tradesman,” said one of the 
Miss Sundons softly, as if resigning herself perforce to the 
lamentable want of style of the modern Archimedes. 

‘‘Or of an old schoolmaster,” chimed in Lady Bell mis- 
chievously, with a half inadvertent glance of approving 
contrast at Captain Fane’s stalwart, well-carried figure. 

It was a “very pretty” manly figure, though it was not 
that of an effeminate dandy such as Admiral Bodney had 
shown himself, before his debts drove him to France, and 
although it had not escaped the professional ro llin g gait of 
the sailor. 

Doubtless even so strict and wise a judge as Harry Fane 
was prepared to be, felt propitiated, whether he knew it or 
not, by the invidious womanish glance which contrasted the 
person of the great mechanic with that of the obscure naval 
officer, and awarded the advantage to the latter. 

“What would you have?” he said, smiling. “Sure 
he has the best to his share, and there is an old 
schoolmaster in Bolt Court, at whom we should not dare to 
peep, but whom ladies of quality, I am glad to say, have 
paid with all the coin at their command, for his generosity 
towards them.” 

“Ah! you mean the great and good Dr. Johnson,” ex- 
clainietl Lady Bell eagerly. “My Mrs. Sundon and I, we 
should have been proud to wait on him, on our bended knees, 


BOULTON AND WEDGWOOD. 


215 


if we had got the opportunity. But I fear his health is 
failing too much for him to appear often in society. I did 
hope to have had a glimpse of him, though I should have 
half died with fear lest he had set me down, as he is a little 
prone to do poor fine ladies who do not take his fancy. But 
you would not compare a man of such erudition in letters to 
a mere mechanic, however ingenious in his own line ?” 

“ I should like to hoar what the great honest man of letters 
would have to say to the imputation of superiority; I should 
like to hear what posterity will have to say,” exclaimed 
Captain Bane with lively impatience. “ But I confess I have 
a natural weakness for the science which provides me with a 
compass, and the mechanics which build me a ship, so that 
possibly I am not a fair authority on the comparative merits 
of science and literature.” 

‘‘ Sir, the very fact of your owning to a natural weakness 
vouches for your impartiality as a witness,” Lady Bell 
declared with her quaint graciousness. 

Through what was audacious in the commendation of 
so young a lady, there vibrated an exquisite under-tone of 
simplicity and nobleness. It contributed to soften still 
further the crude stiffness, essential to the . naval moralist, 
not yet thirty, in his bearing towards Lady Bell, against 
whose heartlessness and artfulness he had forearmed himself, 
when he first contemplated with unequivocal condemnation 
the inconsistency of her position as the youngest and loveliest 
of dowagers. 

When Captain Bane proceeded to escort his ladies to the 
exhibition of Wedgwood ware, he found that there was no 
further call for him to point out excellences, extol achieve- 
ments, and elicit the faint echo of his own enthusiasm. Lady 
Bell especially was in unaffected delight. Her whole artistic 
nature was stirred; she was excited to the highest enjoy- 
ment. 


2i6 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Bell flew from fountain to statue, from plateau to 
vase. Slie liung over tlie nymphs, with their garlands, over 
the groups of flowers — ^herself the most graceful nymph and 
blooming flower that met the spectator’s eye. 

She was on her own ground. The ware of Wedgwood 
and the designs of Flaxman were, indeed, infinitely beyond 
her poor little performances in “composition ” for seals and 
patterns for rufi9.es ; but the spirit of the two was not so wide 
apart as to prevent Lady Bell’s entering heart and soul into 
the finished work before her, and rejoicing in its culmmation. 

“If Mr. Watt is a stooping, spectacled man, whose grey 
hair needs no powder, as powder will not conceal its weather- 
worn whiteness, what do you say to all these elegant forms 
and materials owing their origin to a small-pox-seamed work- 
ing man, wanting a leg ? ” Captain Fane tried her. 

She only laughed. “I should say he was Yulcan himself, 
only Vulcan was a smith, not a potter. But I was thinking 
of the shield of Achilles, of which I have read in Mr. Pope’s 
‘ Homer.’ I should not mind what he was who could shed 
beauty around him. Look at these sky-blues, sea-greens, 
shell Hlacs, and pearl-whites. Notice that cup on the stalk, 
Captain Fane ; what a globe, what delicately raised birds ! 
I vow I can count their feathers in flight along the rim. But 
I am forgettmg to thank you, sir,” exclaimed Lady Bell, 
stopping on a sudden thought, and turning to her conductor 
with frank gratitude. “You have given me a very happy 
morning. And not only that, but on many another morning 
when I am dabbling feebly enough with my box of colours 
and my embroidery chenilles, I shall think of this morning, 
and recall to my profit, sure, as well as to my pleasure, 
Mr. Boulton’s coins and medals, and Mr. Wedgwood and 
Mr. Bentley’s least dish.” 

“ Will you make me happy in return, Lady Bell, by con- 
ferring on me an additional favour ? ” said Harry Fane with 



Page 217. 





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BOULTON AND WEDGWOOD. 


217 


an impulsive stammer tliat was directly opposed to liis usual 
calmness,, and yet was by no means unbecoming in the grave 
young man. “ Will you do me tbe honour to accept this cup 
from me, and keep it as a trophy of Wedgwood and a me- 
mento of what you have been so good as to call a happy 
morning ? ” and the fellow who was known for his restive- 
ness and captiousness, spoke the words humbly, as if he were 
addressing them to a queen. 

“With the greatest pleasure, sir,” answered Lady Bell, 
without a shade of reluctance, and with a sigh of pure satis- 
faction and exultation in the promised possession. “ I have 
been longing to make a purchase of a small sample of the 
wonders before me, to take it home and preserve it as one 
of my cherished treasures. But I feared that my shallow 
purse, already well emptied with town requisitions and ex- 
travagances, could not compass what I desired. I am tres- 
passing on your friendliness ; but besides being yourself a 
lover of art, you are a kinsman of my kind hostess, and 
I declare, through Sir Peter, you are related to my Mrs. 
Sundon.” 

Lady Bell slightly impaired the winning ingenuousness of 
her acceptance by thus arguing it out, in order to justify it in 
her own eyes. But she atoned for the falling off by the 
evident gratification with which she hailed a thread of con- 
nection between Captain Pane and Mrs. Sundon. 

So agreeably was Lady Bell persuaded of the slender link, 
that she helped the open-handed sailor, Miss Sundon and 
Miss Lyddy, to choose a piece of Wedgwood ware for 
Mrs. Sundon, in addition to the pieces for Lady Sundon and 
the girls, and readily undertook to take care of the former 
piece, convey and present it to Mrs. Sundon, along with the 
almanack for her friend, and the set of fiappers for Caro, 
which Lady Bell had in store. 

Lady Bell made no comment, though she could hardly have 
10 


2i8 


LADY BELL. 


overlooked a circumstance, wkich. slie might attribute, as tbe 
Sundons attributed it, to ber bigber rank. There was tbe 
same characteristic difference between Lady Bell’s cup and 
tbe plates and saucers of tbe others that there bad been 
between Benjamin’s mess and tbe messes of bis brethren, 
as sent them from tbe bands of Joseph, when Jacob’s sons 
went in and ate with tbe ruler of Egypt. Lady Bell’s piece 
of Wedgwood ware was five times more valuable than tbe 
other pieces. 


CHAPTEB XXIX. 


A PAETY ON THE ‘WATEB. 

^APTAIN FANE, young wiseacre as he was, reckoned fool- 
ishly with little knowledge of the world, and less know- 
ledge of woman’s nature, that the next time he met Lady BeU 
he should take up the acquaintance at the very point at which 
he had left it off, on the lucky hit of his introducing the 
ladies to the galleries of science and art. 

Far from it, every incident, every influence was different. 
Dramatis persona had entered on the scene who were as new 
as they were distasteful to Harry Fane ; hut they were not 
new to Lady Bell, and they and their fellows were possessed 
of long established claims on her regard. 

True, some weeks had passed during which Captain Fane 
had been before his chiefs of the Admiralty, and kept hard 
at work on his professional business ; but a few weeks were 
nothing, in Harry Fane’s estimation, to warrant this trans- 
formation. 

When Captain Fane employed his next disengaged morn- 
ing, in repairing to his cousin’s house in Cleveland Court, he 
found a gay company marshalled there, about to take advan- 
tage of an unusually fine February day to have a party on 
the water. 

“Well come, Harry!” cried hearty LadySundon; “we 
only lacked a naval man to sit in the end of our barge.” 


220 


LADY BELL. 


We shall be glad to avail ourselves of your experience, 
sir,” Lady Bell, whose party it was specially, was polite 
enough to say ; but it was said carelessly, and she did not 
wait for an answer, as both her ears were monopolized. 

The one ear was filled with the whispers of an affected, 
lisping woman, into whose affectation and lisp there could 
yet be infused such a judiciously-mixed spice of wit and 
scandal as very often rendered her whispers irresistible to 
their hearers. 

Lady Bell’s remaining ear was kept fixed by the honeyed 
sharpness of tongue of a long, lazy, handsome man, in the 
lingering exquisiteness of costume of a purple-velvet coat 
and breeches and white silk stockings, double vest — one 
white, the other jonquil colour — ^two watch guards, a soli- 
taire, diamond buckles, and a little hat. 

Beside this full-fledged, fine-hued gentleman. Captain 
Bane, in his plain blue and white uniform, looked a very 
sober, and, in his present humour, a somewhat gruff bird ; 
but Harry took up his gold-laced hat on the amount of en- 
couragement he received, and went with the company. 

He was the more induced to join the party because he was 
all at once seized with a burning wish and necessity to ascer- 
tain the precise terms on which Lady Bell Trevor stood with 
two of her companions. 

Partial and superflcial as Captain Pane’s acquaintance 
with the fashionable world was, the pair were too marked 
for him not to have a chance of being familiar with their 
antecedents. 

Sir George Waring and Mrs. Lascelles were connected by 
more than an accidental association, though they had escaped 
the ignominy of a miserable bond of union. The owners of 
the names were continually to be seen together at the same 
gay parties, some of which were of a debatable character. 

It was well understood that the couple were fast allies, 


A PARTY ON THE WATER. 221 

thougfli tlie nature of tli© alliance remained a mystery. TYas 
it friendship among the heartless, as there is honour among 
thieves ? Lady Bell honestly believed so. 

Was it true, as some said, that Sir George had bought over 
Mrs. Lascelles by a large debt won from her at piquet, to 
back him in all his endless idle schemes and intrigues, and 
to play into his hand in the fickle, evil aims of the life at 
once of a Sir Fribble and a Lovelace ? 

Did the solution lie in an unauthorised, low-toned love 
between the wickedly good-natured pair, who, with the 
wisdom of the. serpent, held the passion in check, and pre- 
served their cool, careless mask, trusting faintly that death 
might one day interpose in their behalf, and remove Mrs. 
Lascelles’s husband, or, waiting dehberately till the love 
rooted in ashes and fed on malignant vapours, should be 
surely and for ever extinguished ? 

As fiar Mrs. Lascelles’s husband, he played no prominent 
part in the drama, and put in no claim for sympathy. He 
was as basely indifferent as the others ; he simply tolerated 
his wife, and accorded her his protection, so long as she did 
not outrage it. 

In reality there was no pubKc scandal concerning these 
people ; but Harry Fane could not endure to see Lady Bell 
Trevor with them, on intimate terms, and she was still seated 
between the two in the barge. 

Mrs. Lascelles wriggled as a serpent wriggles its glossy 
spots, and shot forth unholy green fire, dragon-like, on the 
right of Lady Bell. 

On the left lounged Sir George, as a splendid sleek tiger 
steps stealthily before it springs, and even when it is too gorged 
and not greedy enough to spring, bites in wanton playfulness. 

Lady Bell was so ignorant of the true nature of such 
persons, that she stopped short with admiring their orange 
and sable glories ; she was tickled and taken with, rather 


222 


LADY BELL. 


tlian repelled, by tbe green fire of Mrs. Lascelles’s brilliant 
scandal, and tbe playful biting of Sir George’s balf-caressing, 
highly cultivated cynicism, — something altogether different 
from Harry Fane’s wholesome, blustering criticism. 

In addition to Lady Bell’s ignorance, her perceptions were 
slightly warped, so that she was disposed to be but too lenient 
to the hole whence she herseK had been dug, and the pit 
from which she had been drawn. 

The barge swept along, among other and less ornamental 
barges laden with hay, coals, sheep, and pigs, past wharfs 
and piers, under bridges, below balconies and projecting 
stories of buildings, by gables of houses — until it left stone 
and lime behind, and reached green banks and lawns, though 
the trees still stretched brown, gnarled, or drooping boughs, 
sharp and unclothed, against the blue of the sky. There 
was just the dimly sweet, green budding of a fine February 
to tell that spring was at hand. • 

Lady Bell smiled brightly and chatted freely with her 
chosen companions. 

Captain Fane had no resource but to fume secretly, and 
seek, as he steered, to be contented with the companionship 
of the Sundons. There was one safeguard in Lady Sundon’s 
irrepressible good fellowship, which was restrained by no 
extreme delicacy or humility, that it combated successfully 
her instinctive homage to rank and fashion, and prevented 
her from being left entirely out of any group in her vicinity. 

Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles’s blandness, — the great 
quality on which they prided themselves, in the absence of 
all higher qualities, — might not have remained unalloyed 
with insolence. The gentleman and lady might have rebuffed 
what they regarded as offensive intrusion in Lady Sundon’s 
freedom of speech, seeing that the pair attached themselves 
to the Sundons solely on Lady Bell’s account. But dear, 
delightful, naive little Lady BeU had her weaknesses, which 


A PARTY ON THE WATER; 


223 


her friends were quick enough to perceive and respect in 
time. One of these weaknesses was, that she would not 
submit to see snubbing administered in her presence to 
the hospitable country baronet’s wife and her absurdly 
gawky step-daughters, with whom she had the misfortune to 
be domiciled in town. 

Neither would the fro ward goddess consent at present to 
be rescued, to quit these Sundons and put herself under the 
guardianship of Mrs. Lascelles, who, if she and Sir George 
had got their will, would have had Lady Bell, without delay, 
cut the whole connection, even so far as her dear Mrs. 
Sundon. 

Mrs. Sundon was a true woman of quality, and of the 
world, indeed, but she had abandoned her sphere, and might 
live to turn queen’s evidence against her old world, any day. 
She was blue, stuck up, and tiresomely virtuous for a young 
woman. Lady Bell spoilt herself by quoting and aping this 
model. 

But Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles must set to work 
cautiously in doing their benevolent “possible ” to cure Lady 
Bell of this and other defects. Borne was not built in one 
day, and neither in one day would a wilful girl’s rampant 
staunchness and warm-heartedness be converted into a con- 
veniently faithless and lukewarm state of the affections. 

In the meantime. Lady Sundon had insisted on drawing 
everybody’s attention to Chelsea, because she had once 
assisted at a “ whim” there, when she had gone over Chelsea 
Hospital. 

• The building had, at this time, its wounded soldiers who 
had been disabled at Bunker’s Hill, and some of whom Captain 
Fane had brought home in his frigate. 

There was a little talk of the engagement, in which the 
general company joined. It was notable that Sir George, 
who was a carpet knight, treated the resistance as a sorry 


224 


LADY BELL. 


trifle, and always called the men who had instituted it, 
‘‘rebels.” But Captain Fane, who had seen service, and 
fought stoutly against these very men, merely named them 
“ provincials,” and stated plainly that they were right, when 
they declared that they had not lost the battle, since, though 
they were driven out of the entrenchments, they had suc- 
ceeded in no less an achievement than that of blockading the 
English army. 

Lady Bell inquired with interest after Captain Fane’s own 
adventures, of which he was specially unwilling to speak in 
such a company. But he told what some of his messmates 
had done under Are : how they had been lying waiting their 
turn from the surgeons, when red-hot shot had passed once 
and again through the cockpit ; notwithstanding, it had 
Spared the ThunderhomV s lads, though it was only for them to 
he lodged, by his Majesty’s and the country’s kindness, in 
the other hospital, Greenwich. 

“ I suppose the dear timher-toes prefer their beef salt and 
their tobacco stale for the sake of old associations,” sug- 
gested Sir George, mincingly. 

“Then, I’m sure it is no kindness to deny them their 
sweet tastes,” followed up Mrs. Lascelles. “ There need not 
he these rows about the Lords of the Admiralty helping 
themselves to the funds. The Lords of the Admiralty are 
always helping themselves to something, worse than the 
lords of the Treasury, — ^hut both lords must live. Oh, for- 
give me. Captain Fane, and don’t look so fierce. I dare say 
it is the shore that demoralises your friends.” 

“I dare say it is, madam, if they are demoralised, which I, 
their servant, have no business to take for granted,” replied 
Captain Fane angrily. 




OHAPTEE XXX. 


DISCOKD. 

J KNOW tliat the shore demoralised my friend Lady Kitty 
Lake,” continued Mrs. Lascelles, benignly; ‘‘she could 
not be prevailed on to leave it after she had reached it again. 
But what do you think her Commodore did to her, my 
dear Lady Bell ? Kept her under closed hatches — whatever 
these may be — with no more light than half a tallow candle 
to make her head and do herself up, whenever the ship had 
taken a prize, and there was an insinuating enemy on board. 
However, she stole a march on her tyrant. She amused 
herself in the middle of some shocking sea-fight, by getting 
herself up in an imitation of her husband’s uniform. You 
must know she is a big, imposing-looking woman, and he a 
little ton of a man, as fat as one of the pigs in the coops, 
copper colour in complexion, bristling all over with hogs’ 
hair, and in the habit of amusing himself with cui’sing and 
swearing through a speaking trumpet. I believe he is 
known as the ‘Cursing Commodore,’ though how cursing 
should be a means of distinguishing him from other com- 
modores, I am at a loss to say. Well, the moment the firing 
ceased. Lady Kitty, metamorphosed into a creditable officer, 
ran upon deck, and was in time to get the enemy to deliver 
up to her his sword, which she returned with a genteel bow. 
The Commodore was so frightened for the trick's being noised 
io-» Q 


226 


LADY BELL. 


abroad — and he laughed at, if not superseded — that he 
was forced to connive at it, and so lost the opportunity of 
behaving with his usual brutality.” 

“Allow me to tell you, madam,” interposed Captain Eane, 
very sternly for the occasion, “that Commodore Lake has 
the reputation of being a most humane, as well as a very 
gallant officer in his squadron, to which I have the honour 
to belong.” 

“I’m quite easy, sir,” lisped Mrs. Lascelles, without a 
second’s awkwardness in the concession; “I tell the story 
as it was told to me. Perhaps you have also the pleasure 
of knowing my friend Lady Kitty.” 

“No, madam; and I conjecture that I should not feel 
myself at all worthy of the acquaintance,” growled Harry 
^ane. 

“ Oh, I don’t know that, sir,” urged Mrs. Lascelles, 
blandly. “ Lady Kitty makes every allowance ; particularly 
when, poor soul ! she is a prisoner in a hideous den of a ship, 
with none but you amiable tars to make eyes at, in order to 
pass her time.” 

“Now, can’t you be amiable, Harry,” said Lady Sundon, 
in an audible aside, “as madam gives you credit for being 
without too much reason? Yes, I assure you, madam,” 
declared Lady Sundon, in a louder key, and directly address- 
ing Mrs. Lascelles, “if my cousin had been on ship-board 
with your Lady Kitt}^, he would have been mighty proud to 
be made eyes at by so distinguished a lady, and would have 
done his best to entertain her with his books, and maps, and 
specimens. He is a fellow of parts, though he don’t do him- 
self justice, or lay himself out to be agreeable.” 

“What a pity ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Lascelles, sleepily. 

“ Ain’t it ? ” responded Lady Sundon, with animation. 
“ I often tell him so. There ! Harry, do you hear that ? ” 

“ Captain Pane is obliged to you for telling me and the 


DISCORD. 


2 ? 7 

world what he takes such pains to hide under a bushel,” 
remarked Mrs. Lascelles ; “but Lady Kitty is like myself, — 
she don’t much affect hooks and maps.” 

“No more do I,” said Lady Sundon cordially; “and I 
wish Harry would throw them aside, and cultivate company 
manners.” 

“La! you know you don’t practise what you preach,” 
objected Miss Sundon, who had been engrossed with admi- 
ration of Mrs. Lascelles and Sir George, but who felt that 
it was time to vindicate the superior delicacy of herself and 
her sister from any suspicion of complicity with Lady 
Sundon’s breezy vigour. “You are always professing to 
sister and me, Lady Sundon, when we try to hold you again, 
to get you to be quiet, and to adopt that repose which is so 
necessary and becoming to a delicate female — that y<^ 
despise company manners.” 

“ Because I ain’t a delicate female, child, and I am your 
father’s wife, the mistress of you and Lyddy and the whole 
house, as I can tell all concerned,” said Lady Sundon a little 
indignantly. “If I were a bad mistress of Sir Peter’s family 
you would not venture to speak so to me ; therefore, I can 
well afford to let your foolish tongue wag without minding 
it,” continued Lady Sundon, rapidly cooling down and re- 
covering her habitual good humour. ^‘Besides, can’t you 
see that I am too old to learn company manners, as I am too 
old to improve my mind, which I was telling you t’other day. 
Lady BeU?” 

“Don’t learn anything that is foreign to you, dear Lady 
Sundon.” Lady Bell forbade any change. “ Be always your- 
self, your best self.” 

“ And I shall crave leave, without any permission granted,” 
spoke up Captain Pane, “ to remain myself, even my worst 
self, rather than take a leaf out of another man’s book, say 
Sir George Waring’s.” 


228 


LADY BELL. 


‘‘ Sir, I am honoured by figuring as your example.” Sir 
Greorge nodded slightly, and took snufP. 

Lady Bell was vexed by the turn the conversation was 
taking, and the utter want of harmony in her company. Of 
what good the clear, curling water, the precocious spring 
weather, the delightful gliding motion of the boat which the 
rowers were sending along so smoothly to green Bichmond 
and Hampton — if quarrelling were the order of the day ? 

Mrs. Lascelles might not dislike it at the expense of Lady 
Bell and her host’s family, because it would form a tit-bit of 
conversation to retail, well spiced and served hot, in the next 
party which Mrs. Lascelles should enter. 

Sir Greorge might not mind. This fashionable goddess and 
god were somewhat above human feeling, and could take their 
sport out of the discomfiture of others. But these others 
were troubled, and showed themselves in their worst colours, 
and unreasonable Lady Bell blamed Captain Lane as the 
cause. Why was he so stern in contradicting Mrs. Lascelles’s 
incredible story of Lady Kitty Lake ? Where was the use 
of contradicting it at all, when nobody believed it, and when 
it was not meant to be believed ? Why was he so rude to 
Sir Gieorge Waring? 

Lady Bell tried to make a diversion in the conversation as 
the boat was approaching Eichmond. She began to remark 
upon the houses and their occupants. 

Then the attention of Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles be- 
came concentrated on a white house in the background, while 
they expatiated on the merits and misfortunes of its owner. 

“It is enough to make a fellow doubt all good,” protested 
Sir George, with something like melancholy energy, “to 
think of the fate of poor dear Lady Hi, consigned from the 
tender mercies of a fool only to those of a brute ! ” 

“ And she so clever to be twice taken in, ’’ .protested Lady 
Bell, with soft wonder. “ She is another Mrs. Darner, 


DISCORD. 


229 


Captain Fane.” Slie turned to Harry in explanation, 
thinking to propitiate the hear, and seeking to allay a little 
twinge of conscience where her sweeping censure of that 
gentleman was concerned. 

Had he not been attentive and kind to her on a recent 
occasion ? By whose fault after all had he been suffered to 
fall into neglect, or to he twitted and tormented that day, 
until he had assumed an attitude of marked hostility to those 
around him ? 

“We are speaking of Lady Di Beauclerk, who can paint 
like a Breughel or a Sneyders,” finished Lady Bell. 

“I dare say, sir” — Mrs. Lascelles came between the 
couple with her affectation of artlessness — “you prefer a 
simpler, shorter road to excellence. You think Lady Di 
would have been better employed if she had been tossing 
pancakes or hemming dish-clouts.” 

“ I don’t know about simpler, shorter roads,” cried Captain 
Fane defiantly, “ but I confess I prefer straight lines, and I 
have no pity to waste on crooked ones. I do think that your 
paragon. Lady Di, would have been a vast deal better 
emploj^ed in bearing — ay, even in seeking to better the 
enormities of one sinner, than in making a trial, for a 
change, by the aid of the law of divorce, how she should 
like the enormities of another. And when she finds that 
she cannot abide the second any more than the first, she 
raises a precious pother, forsooth! because she is properly 
punished.” 

Lady Bell was aggrieved, even shocked, by this plain 
speaking. Lady Di had been so heavily punished for. her 
errors, that she had arrived at their being condoned, and had 
come to be treated herself as a sort of cherished pet, not by 
her own set alone, but by wiser men and women. 

Who or what was this sailor, that he should roughly rend 
social veils, tear asunder well-bred illusions, and sit in judg- 


230 


LADY BELL. 


inent on his fellow-creatures, whose fearful stumhling-blocks 
and torturing temptations he could never fathom ? 

Lady Bell would have nothing more to say to Captain 
Fane. She bestowed her entire regard on Sir Greorge and 
Mrs. Lascelles. When the party landed and walked up to 
Hampton Court, Lady Bell went with her particular allies 
without looking over her shoulder. She suffered them to 
lead her through the rooms which ambition, in its ostentation 
and prodigality, had built, and she lingered especially in the 
“Beauty-room.” She made as if she were absorbed by the 
meretricious' un-English seeming beauties, and the un- 
edifying traditions which they had left behind them in the 
gossip of Gramont, quoted aptly and with adroit reticence 
by Sir George. 

She paid no heed on this occasion to the Dutch garden, 
the long alleys, the goodly boughs, the bridge across the 
river, with the pure blue sky over all — she treated these as 
if they might be left out of the count, and as if they did 
not deserve her notice. 

But Sir George took her into the “Maze,” and it was on 
Sir George that she called, when she was weary of bewilder- 
ment, to unravel the labyrinth, and find her a mode of exit. 

Sir George finally conducted Lady Bell to the village inn, 
where the party were to dine, and seated her at the head of 
the table, in the rustic tea-room, as the queen of the feast. 

Lady Bell allowed the particularity of this homage. She 
received it all — either as if she were indifferent to what it 
ought to tend, or as if she had never heard that Sir George 
was a notorious breaker of women’s hearts, a hardened' 
Lothario, whose wings no woman had been able to clip, 
though he had been fiuttering round women from his whelp- 
dom to his somewhat jaded prime of puppydom. 

In that prime Sir George was still slightly Harry Fane’s 
junior, while Sir George was far nearer an Adonis by nature, 


DISCORD. 


231 


with, every personal point immeasurably better brought out 
by art. But though Sir George had not faced a bronzing 
climate or a battering service, the high-pressure atmosphere 
of fashionable dissipation in which he had flourished, was 
more telling than either alternative. In spite of his bap- 
tismal register. Sir George in all his elegance looked not 
half so fresh and hardly so young as Captain Fane. Manli- 
ness took some indemnification, but such indemnification has 
not always been valued. There have been women to whom 
such a world-worn hero as Sir George is irresistibly attractive. 
There are women to this day, if their qualified annalists do 
not lie, who prize such a reputation as Sir George Waring’s. 

This was not the reputation of an honest fellow, a true 
friend, a brave worker, a gallant gentleman, a reverent and 
sincere Christian, even in sorry days, for the most part, where 
Christianity was concerned. But it was the reputation of a 
man gnawed to the core by the rust of selfishness and self- 
conceit, who could sneer with the finished grace of a cold- 
hearted man of the world, pluming himself on having ate of 
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — on the evil side 
alone, having summarily rejected the good as unworthy of 
his consideration. 

Did Lady Bell belong to the order of women who admire 
such men? It looked as if this man were to her taste;, 
and to give the devil his due, your fine gentleman, when he 
had everything his own way, could be pleasant — ^few plea- 
santer among the best of good people. The very absence of 
feeling, and presence of heartless good-nature, invested Sir 
George with a kind of airy agreeability and versatility. 


OEATTER XXXI. 


THE LITTLE LINKER AT BAMPTON, WITH MUSIC ON THE WATER. 

TN the course of the little dinner in the Hampton tea-room, 
Sir George would not only not sit down till the rest of 
the party were seated, hut he would supersede a regular 
waiter to wait upon his companions. It might have been for 
the peculiar satisfaction of waiting on Lady Bell, hut cer- 
tainly he did not confine his cares to that quarter of the table. 
He, the finest gentleman in the room, hut that was saying 
little, did the whole waiting. He changed plates and placed 
glasses, and brought round sauces, so neatly and so comically, 
with such cleverness, taste, and devotion, making amends to 
everybody, as it were, for all his previous shortcomings — not 
caring, though his own meal were cold, or though he had not 
a meal at all — "that it was hard, before so patent a proof, not 
to think him unselfish as well as delightful. 

“ Upon my word,” mumbled Lady Sundon, with her mouth 
full of cutlet, ‘‘ Sir George is the charmingest man going — 
he beats the women out and out, even you. Lady Bell. I 
don’t wonder that nobody can say nay to him.” 

Mrs. Lascelles did not appear so bent on redeeming her 
character ; she still made wry faces and turned up her nose 
at the pickled walnuts and the cherry pie. 

But Lady Bell was in her element. “I wonder if there 
are anv cows here,” she cried, peeping out uf the window 


THE LITILE DINNER AT HAMPTON. 


233 


behind her. If there had been such a Whitefoot as we have 
at SummerhiU, I might have run out and milked her and 
whipped you a syllabub in no time. Yes, I can whip sylla- 
bubs, Mrs. Lascelles, you need not look incredulous, and 
strain gooseberry fool too, only this is not the season of the 
year for gooseberries.” 

“ Ain’t it ? ” inquired Mrs. Lascelles with languid inno- 
cence. 

“ Gracious, madam ! did you not know that we hadn’t 
gooseberries in February?” questioned Lady Sundon, staring 
goggle-eyed at this curious piece of ignorance. 

Lady Bell went on without paying any heed to Mrs. Las- 
celles’ affectation. “ If my Mrs. Sundon or Master Charles 
were here they would bear out iny story.” 

“ By bribery and corruption, only too excusable in such a 
court,” argued Sir George. “But who may Master Charles 
be when he is at home ? An overgrown baby, as his name 
would imply, or a wild man of the woods, eh. Lady Bell ? ” 
asked Sir George with privileged freedom, while preparing 
to make his own dinner, like the most frugal of hermits, on 
bread and milk. “No, don’t press any grosser fare upon 
me,” he waved off the eagerness of his friends to repay his 
benefits. “I do enjoy an Arcadian meal at times, when I 
have not only the felicity of being in Arcady, but of being 
with nymphs in Arcady,” Sir George bowed, with his hand on 
his heart. 

“It is fine to have the command of such language,” said 
Lady Sundon, holding up her hands. 

“But about this Master Charles,” Sir George returned to 
the subject ; “can he, after partaking of such syllabubs and 
gooseberry fools, be still a ruddy youth, with great hands and 
feet?” 

Lady Bell laughed, blushed, and winced a little for her 
friend. Beside Sir George, Master Charles would appear 


234 


LADY BELL. 


ruddy, and his Lumley-bought gloves and boots did not 
tend to diminish the natural size of his hands and feet ; but 
where was the harm — in the ruddiness especially, unless she 
had learnt to despise rude health like the Misses Sundon ? 
They had been putting severe restraint on themselves, that 
they might not taste more than a morsel, after being hours 
on the water, not so much to bear Sir George company, for 
they had not foreseen his temperance, as to display their own 
ethereal appetites. 

Harry Fane had watched Lady Bell narrowly. ‘‘ She is 
not only of the world worldly, she is as heartless as the others,” 
was his scornful conclusion. “She is ashamed of the mere 
recollection of some poor befooled country fellow, whatever 
he may be, better than this mocking j ackanapes ; but what 
does it matter to me?” 

“A penny for your thoughts, Harry,” cried Lady Sundon, 
“or if you won’t give us them, propose a toast, do something 
for the good of the company.” 

“I drink to you, then, cousin, since you have started the 
idea,” replied Captain Fane, so soberly that it was almost 
gloomily, after he found that he could not escape, and that 
the attention of the party was directed to him. 

“A plague on the lad! to give an old married woman 
who might be his mother,” remonstrated Lady Sundon, “but 
if you are all so kind, thanks to you,” and Lady Sundon 
beamed radiantly on the raised glasses. 

“Now, Lady Bell, I’m ready for Master Charles,” sug- 
gested Sir George, holding up his glass of milk. 

“ Nothing of the kind,” said Lady Bell, getting nettled. 
“At least Master Charles is not a milksop; supposing you 
will pledge in no better, you must pledge yourself. Sir 
George! I give ‘ Sir George Waring,’ and I couple my toast 
with a sentiment ; ‘ May we persevere in and profit by 
simplicity.’ ” 


THE LITTLE DINNER AT HAMPTON. 


235 


** I respond to your toast with the humblest gratitude, 
and I drink your sentiment with all the pleasure in life, for 
have I not profited by simplicity already this day ?” rejoined 
Sir George, with perfect good-humour, looking not a whit 
annoyed, but rather gratified, by Lady Bell’s poor little wit 
being spent upon him — a cheerful nonchalance which put 
Lady Bell to shame. 

Afironted with herself. Lady Bell began hastily to talk of 
the cockle-shells which had been found by the bushel under 
one of the floors of Somerset House ; and that led to - a dis- 
cussion of the exchange which the Q,ueen had made in giving 
up Somerset House for Buckingham House. 

The discussion paved the way for Mrs. Lascelles’s descant- 
ing on the petition of the maids of honour that they might 
get a compensation in lieu of supper, which was worth 
seventy pounds more salary. 

When the party went back to the boat, the day was termi- 
nating in the rosiest sunset which ever breathed of spring, 
youth, and promise. 

vow we must be in Arcady,” repeated Sir George. 
With all his pretence at fine language, he had just the tiniest 
spark of the soul of a lover of nature. Yet the glow which 
blushed on the water and shone on all the faces, and was 
only the brighter and the gladder for the chill bleakness of 
winter scarcely forsaken, awoke some small response even in 
his artificial nature. 

As for Captain Fane, he sat with his cap in his hand, 
letting the breeze blow in his hair, looking down the river 
towards the open sea, wishing he were away in his ship. 
Life was bad enough on ship-board sometimes, in the depths 
of tyranny, ignorance, profanity, and mutiny ; but there the 
mass of men, even at their worst, were toilsome men in 
rough earnest. There, in the night-watches, a man could be 
alone with sea and sky, until he forgot the very existence 


236 


LADY BELL. 


of heartless fine ladies and expert actors of fine gentle- 
men. 

“We want only music to make the hour complete,” 
said Sir Greorge. “ Lady Bell, might I beg — ?” 

Lady Bell hesitated, then yielding to the spirit of the hour, 
commenced to sing an air from the popular opera. 

Sir George struck in with a mellow second, singing being 
one of this fine gentleman’s accomplishments, as well as 
playing on the flute and the flageolet. 

The song was warmly applauded by aU save Captain Fane. 
Even Lady Sundon praised, while she frankly admitted that 
she did not comprehend a word of the jargon, “but never- 
theless do let us have some more of it.” 

“We shall have these boats following us. Lady Sundon,” 
objected Harry Fane, looking round sharply from where he 
was steering, and indicating, among the work-a-day barges, 
two boats filled with company, that had been attracted like 
themselves to a row on the river by a day borrowed from 
April and set in the end of February. These boats had 
already been drawn into the wake of the first by the singing. 

“What though the boats do follow, they ain’t going to run 
us down,” stout Lady Sundon made light of the demur ; 
“you are becoming quite a kill-joy, Harry Fane.” 

It was an extraordinary sensation for Lady Bell to have 
the propriety of her behaviour doubted by a man — a sailor — 
before these pinks of fashion. Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles, 
who had been contributing to put Lady Bell at her ease. 

She disliked the ruggedness of Captain Fane as much as 
she liked the suavity of Sir George, which no sauciness of 
hers could disturb, for she had been saucy in substituting Sir 
George’s own name as a toast which he might drink in milk. 

Lady Bell looked Harry Fane in the face and challenged 
Sir George to accompany her in something which Lady 
Sundon would approve — “Begone, dull care,” or “Pray 


THE LITTLE DINNER AT HAMPTON. 


237 


Goodj, cease,’’ a cliallenge wliicli Sir G-eorge accepted, 
notliing loth.. 

But before the first song was concluded, one of the boats 
in the rear shot across the how of the Sundons’ boat, and 
three or four excited men, in white rests and rich coats like 
Sir George’s, threatened to upset both of the craffc as they 
gesticulated violently, while they shouted — 

“ Heyday ! Waring, hold on ! What little opera-girl have 
you got there ? Here, pitch her over to us, that she may tip 
us a stave. We’ve been dining at Kew, and we’ll engage to 
troll, among us, as good an accompaniment as you can con- 
trive with your single pipe, sweet though it he.” 

“Hold off! Annesley, Gower; mind what you’re about. 
You’re absurdly wrong, I tell you, and if you don’t set your- 
selves right, by heavens I I’ll have to take the correcting 
of you into my own hands,” called back Sir George, frowning 
blackly for once in his life. 

“It is true, confound him!” cried one of the strange 
gentlemen, letting his boat fall off. “He’s in other company; 
yonder is Mrs. Lascelles — who would have thought it ? — and 
there is an avenging fury of a naval officer porting helm. 
Good afternoon. Sir George, good afternoon to you,” dropped 
more faintly over the water. 

But Lady Bell had shrunk into herself abashed, recalled 
to her senses, and deeply wounded alike in her self-respect 
and her pride. 

Not all the solicitations and excuses of Sir George and 
Mrs. Lascelles could make Lady Bell immediately forget the 
indignity to which she had exposed herself, or forgive them 
for promoting the exposure, though she was silent on her 
feelings, and as willing as the others to welcome a diversion. 

The day was so complete in its spring character, that at 
sundown a little cloud of midges seemed to start into life and 
bover in the air. 


238 


LADY BELL. 


“How short their day is!” said Lady Bell, regretfully for 
the ephemera. “I know they are only creatures of a day, 
but to come and go so soon, — if they had waited for a few 
more months, they might have danced through a few more 
hours, and not been pinched by so sharp a death. Who 
knows?” 

“My dear creature, — ^forgive me; my best Lady Bell,” Sir 
George corrected himself, “the midges have been highly 
honoured, even before you condescended to pity them. They 
have more than served their purpose,- — they have helped to 
furnish an illusion for us, that this February day by the 
calendar, is in the merry month of May by our experience, 
and that Hampton is Arcady. Now, here we are past Chel- 
sea, fast coming back to the coarse dissipation of the garish 
town and the cold winds of March ; what should remain to 
the midges, but to be swept aside with the illusion?” 

Lady Bell turned away her head and shut her eyes for a 
moment, she did not wish to see even the midges swept 
aside. She did not like the philosophy of which she and 
hers formed always the centre. She had not consented to 
view life as a rainbow-hued but hollow mockery, a mere 
series of convenient, spangled illusions. 


CHAPTEE XXXII. 


A VISIT TO LEICESTER FIELDS. 


/CAPTAIN PANE, of his own free will, would not have 
paid another visit to Cleveland Court, before he returned 
to his ship. So far as it rested with him, he had made up 
his mind — a great deal too tartly for perfect indifference — to 
have nothing more to do with fine ladies, and to turn his 
back on fine ladies’ entertainers, so long as they were cum- 
bered with such troublesome guests. 

But Captain Pane had business with Sir Peter, who was, 
indeed, about to appoint Harry Pane one of the guardians to 
his young son, and so punctilious and conscientious a young 
man as Harry Pane could not see it his duty to renounce this 
trust because circumstances had rendered it distasteful to 
him. 

Thus it happened, that while Captain Pane felt scandalised 
by the manner in which Lady Bell Trevor had suffered her- 
self to fioat doubly with the tide, in the water party, while 
he kept telling himself caustically that he need not have 
expected anything else, and continued setting his face, more like 
a flint than ever, against fashionable frivolity and levity — 
he yet found himself on the steps of Sir Peter Sundon’s house. 

And at that moment Lady Bell, attended by her maid, 
tripped out in her caleche and with her hands clasped in her 
muff, clearly starting on an expedition. 


240 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Bell distanced and dumbfounded Captain Fane, who 
was unfamiliar with the changes of mind and revolutions in 
tactics of even the staidest and most demure of womankind. 

She stopped him as he was about to pass her with a form- 
ally low bow, by holding out a friendly little hand, and 
bestowing on him the unsolicited information, that she was 
bound for the great painter in Leicester Fields, who had 
made so fine a picture of Commodore Keppel. 

She was not a sitter herself, but she had made interest to 
see the paintings which Sir Joshua Eeynolds had on hand. 

She knew that she should never be able to look upon her 
daubs after this morning, but, womanlike, she must go and 
meet her fate, though it were her demolition. 

Sir Joshua’s pictures were works of genius in his line, 
equal to Mr. Boulton’s and Mr. Wedgwood’s exhibitions ; 
therefore, she ventured to offer Captain Fane the benefit of 
her ticket, as a poor return for his former kindness. 

She was all alone, save her maid, Eogers, because Lady 
Sundon was engaged with Sir Peter, and the Misses Sundon 
could not stand the smell of paint without the risk of in- 
curring megrim or vertigo. She was more fortunate — ^but 
then she had always dabbled in paints, and so was used to 
the odour. 

Before Captain Fane knew what he was about, he had 
turned, and was walking away by her side in acceptance of 
her invitation. Neither did he detest or despise himself for 
his weakness, as might have been expected. 

Lady Bell had succeeded, without a word of confession or 
acknowledgment, by the shy, wistful appeal of her eyes as she 
prattled to him, in making him comprehend that she had 
seen that he was right and she was wrong in their respective 
opinions of much that had happened at the water party. 
She implied that she was sorry for having offended and 
alienated him ; that she had resolved on following, in future. 


A VISIT TO LEICESTER FIELDS. 24 1 

rational pursuits, instead of mere idle pleasure-hunting, — 
witnesgr her early homage to art this morning. 

Captain Fane could not even accuse himself of meddling in 
a matter which was none of his, far less could he accuse him- 
self of madly foolish motives. 

Was 'it not in some measure the business of every honour- 
able, kindly man to encourage a girl like Lady Bell, in any 
intelligent interest that might help to educate her, and raise 
her above the giddy vacant crowd of fashionables, with whom 
idleness was the fruitful parent of mischief ? 

Ought he not to alter his arrangements, and put himself a 
little out of his way for one morning, to see that she did 
not fall into company like that of the hateful Sir Oeorge 
Waring, when she was walking abroad with no better pro- 
tection than her maid’s. 

‘ True, it was broad day, and with that it was also betimes 
in the forenoon, doubtless an age before Sir George was up 
holding his levee, in his brocade nightgown, as he sipped his 
chocolate, and pencilled his daily note to Mrs. Lascelles. 

But people could not be too careful, under some conditions. 
Lady Sundon was certainly as fearless and heedless, as Lady 
Bell was guileless and thoughtless. It became Captain 
Fane’s part to supplement the absence of some of the proper, 
qualities of a guardian in his cousin. 

If Lady Sundon was lax, the strictness and zeal of Captain 
Fane on Lady Bell’s behalf might, if the persons principally 
concerned had given themselves time to think about it, have 
astonished even them. But this young couple, after the 
questionable fashion of young couples, did not pause to 
weigh their relations — ^they took them for granted. 

Lady Bell had even so’ pleasing a trust in the sedately 
fault-finding young sea-captain, that she had not the sKghtest 
qualm when he at once did her bidding and consented to be 
elected her escort, such as she would have had with almost 
11 


242 


LADY BELL. 


any other of the gay danglers about her, and notably with the 
agreeable Sir George. “ Captain Fane is such a manly, true 
young spark,” she took it upon her to decide, for her private 
satisfaction, though how she had arrived at the strong con- 
clusion after one or two bantering, bickering interviews, 
unless from information derived from Lady Sundon, to whose 
judgment Lady Bell was not wont to pin her faith, it puzzles 
one to guess. ‘‘He is a little prejudiced and hard,” con- 
tinued Lady Bell, mentally taking stock of her companion, 
“ but I can melt him ” (there was the triumph!) “I think 
I know how he would look boarding a ship, and how I could 
make him drop his sword,” which was a purely imaginative 
vision. 

As Lady Bell and Captain Fane passed along the streets, 
they became eye-witnesses to a curious political contradiction. 
At one thoroughfare, men were stationed with handbills, to 
be distributed to respectable and influential persons, espe- 
cially to members of parliament, praying them to stop the 
shedding of their American brethren’s blood. At another 
thoroughfare, the pedestrians had to thread their way 
through a crowd — the centre of which was the common 
hangman in the act of burning, to the accompaniment of 
tumultuous applause, copies of a pamphlet entitled “The 
Present Crisis with respect to America,” which had been 
condemned by both Houses, as a flagrant insult to the King. 

Captain Fane informed Lady Bell that this difference of 
opinion had even penetrated to the services. He brought 
forward the instance of Lord Viscount Pitt,, son to my Lord 
Chatham, having asked leave to resign his commission, since 
he was determined not to serve in a war between the mother 
country and her colony. 

“ And what do you say, sir ? ” inquired Lady Bell. 

“I say that it is too late to stop a fratricidal war, save by 
fighting it out as quickly as may be, and that even if it were 


A VISIT TO LEICESTER FIELDS. 


243 


not so, it is for me to obey, not to issue, orders,” be replied 
witb decision. 

At Leicester Fields Lady Bell’s ticket procured tbe ad- 
mission of the lady and her friend, first into the parlour, 
where an untidy, abrupt, cordial elderly woman, was herself 
painting a miniature and hurriedly sopping up her spilt 
paint, when she heard the steps of visitors. 

This was Mrs. Frances Eeynolds, who painted “ The 
grimly ghost of Johnson,” and wrote the “ Essay on Taste ”, 
— printed but never published. She was soon on familiar 
terms with the intruders. 

“My brother will be certain to spare time for you,” Miss 
Eeynolds assured Lady Bell, “he is like the rest of the 
geniuses, not above the fiattery of such a visit. Bah ! 
haven’t I known them all, Burke, Goldy, Dr. Johnson, who 
has wished my tea-pot might never run dry, and yet hurried 
off to help himself with his own spoon out of a Countess’s 
sugar-bason, and been put down — to put her down in turn in 
the presence of her grand company ? Ah ! well I have never 
wished the great Doctor would stay by his own fireside, 
though he has forced Joshua to rise and take his hat, if he 
would not sit on into the small hours, and have us all wink- 
ing with sleep as the only hint to our visitor to be gone. I 
don’t know that we think ourselves so enviable. You’ll be 
sent for to the painting-room presently. Lady Bell — no, you 
need not look at my baby faces — child’s play to the doings 
of my brother, — the man in Cavendish Square can never 
come near them, though I should not say it. But first you 
must let me have a look at you, for even we poor artists 
hear of the belles of the season, with other public matters, 
in the conversation of sitters, and when we are bidden to 
look in at a conversazione, or a rout, now and then.” 

“Oh, pray. Miss Eeynolds, don’t make me public property,” 
cried Lady Bell, in laughing objection. 


244 


LADY BELL. 


“If my brother seek to paint you, as he has painted so 
many of your sisterhood, you will become public property, 
whether you like it or no,” boasted the sister, “you cannot 
help it, madam, it is a tax you owe to the country, like the 
tax on powder or armorial bearings. But who is this gentle- 
man ? I did not catch his name. Oh ! my brother has done 
many naval men, and for my part, I. like his Lord Mount 
Edgecumbe and his Commodore Keppel, as well as any face 
which he has put through his hands. My Lord Mount Edge- 
cumbe is a Devonshire man, and for Commodore Keppel he 
gave J oshua his first lift, and we may well love a dog with 
the name of ‘Keppel,’ as Dr. Johnson could love a dog if it 
were called ‘Hervey.’ ” 

The garrulous inquisitive lady was interrupted by her 
little niece, as quiet as the aunt was a rattle, and as shy and 
attentive to the proprieties as Miss Keynolds was impetuous 
and eccentric. This young girl was Sir Joshua’s Ofiy Palmer, 
whom he was to immortalise, reading “ Clarissa,” and who 
was to be Mrs. Cwatkin, while her sister was to be the 
heiress of the largest fortune acquired by the prosecution of 
art in this inartistic England, and to marry the Marquis of 
Thomond. She brought a message that her uncle was free 
from a sitter then, and for the next half hour, and that he 
was coming himself to take Lady Bell Trevor and Captain 
Pane to his painting room, where he would show them the 
pictures in his possession. 


OHAPTEE XXXm. 


SIR JOSHUA AT HOME 

anotlier instant there entered a fresh, almost chubhy- 
faced gentleman, with a dint in his nether lip, and an 
ear-trumpet in his hand. He was not without a certain 
dapperness in the unexceptionable brown coat and spotless 
ruffles, which he had substituted for his painting-coat and 
plain cuffs. 

He was the briskest of gentlemen, the most obliging of 
geniuses who ever kept sitters in good humour and under 
control, by the very ease of his dignity in bearing with their 
airs and oddities. 

The contemporary of the glorious, careless good-fellow 
Gainsborough, of Eomney in his arrogant, one-sided power, 
and later of Opie, the most self-taught and the most self- 
asserting painter among them — Sir Joshua beat them all. 

It may be true that his art was pervaded with an 
artificial, aristocratic flavour, and that he made a little lady 
of his strawberry girl, and modern Enghsh my lords of every 
historical personage who passed under his pencil. 

Painters may feel it their duty from their watch-tower of 
technical knowledge, to impress on the world their grieved 
conviction, that the president of the old Academy, so widely 
cultivated, so full of sense and acumen, in addition to his 
professional ability, and to the industry which “ never passed 


246 


LADY BELL. 


a day and lost a line,” the chosen friend of the most puhlic- 
spirited men of his time — ^yet painted deliberately for a single 
generation. 

He was, according to his brethren, wilful and regardless of 
the destructive nature of the pigment which he used, so that 
they produced a certain effect to last his time. His accusers 
point in proof of their charge to the fading lines and cracking 
canvas of the very works of which all EngKshmen are proud. 

So be it, if it must be so ; we have stiU the poetry (let 
some hold it fantastic) of the Tragic Muse, the gallant 
heroism of Keppel, the thoughtful benevolence of Johnson, 
the broad archness of Nelly O’Brien ; and we have following 
on the dainty playfulness of “ Pick-a-back” a long train of 
fresh and delicate, lovely and stately, English maids and 
matrons, with Sir J oshua’s quaint sweet children bringing up 
the rear. 

In Lady Bell’s day there was no thought, unless it were 
among the chemically skilled, that these softly glowing, 
wonderfully blended colours would wane, or the fine surface 
give way. Sir Joshua was regarded as the quintessence of 
inspired and courtly painters, treading in the footsteps of 
Tandyck. 

Sir Joshua had only a few of his paintings to show the 
eager, intelligent young lady, whose grace was so winning to 
his eye, and her eloquence so grateful to his ear — through his 
trumpet — as it reached him. There were fair ladies sacrificing 
to the graces and to the muses, very interesting to Lady 
Bell. There was Dr. Beattie in his gown as an Oxford 
Doctor of Laws, with his book on “ The Immutability of 
Truth ” under his arm, and the Angel of Truth going before 
him, beating down the gruesome figures of Sophistry, Scepti- 
cism, and Infidelity, said to personify Voltaire, Gibbon, and 
llume, which was carefully studied by Captain Pane. There 
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SIR JOSHUA AT HOME. 


247 


with the fascination of horror both of the gazers. There was 
the portrait of a plump little woman, sprightly even on 
canvas, her high- dressed hair wreathed with pearls, a shawl 
girdle binding loosely the short waist and bodice, which Sir 
Joshua strove to paint into fashion — a great improvement 
on the earlier elongated steel-bound waist and laced-up 
bodice. 

As Sir Joshua was about to name the original, the real 
lady ran unushered, ip her hat and cloak, into the room. 

The new-comer had not a moment to stay to be introduced 
to Lady Bell Trevor and Captain Fane. She was in haste to 
tell Sir Joshua that she had just come down from the Burgh, 
where she had left her master at his place of business, but 
nearly as ailing as the Doctor (good lack, what a load she 
had on her head and shoulders!) She wished to know 
whether Sir Joshua had done the retouching which he had 
taken it into his head to throw away on a barn-door face 
beyond improvement. Grive her joy on the audacity of com- 
plimenting herself; but she did not mean to compliment — 
not that she was not well enough pleased with her own, she 
would never deny it. She would like the picture packed and 
sent out without loss of time. Queeney and the rest of the 
young fry might care to look at it one day, when it was all 
that was left of their mother. Grood day to him and to all. 

‘‘You are in luck, Lady Bell,” announced Sir Joshua, 
returning, briskly rubbing his hands, from seeing the lady to 
her coach, “ if you have not had a previous opportunity of 
meeting my friend. That is Mrs. Thrale, the wife of the 
great brewer, who is himself an exceedingly liberal gentle- 
man and well-read scholar ; but his wife excels him in the 
classics.” 

“She was one of the west country Lynches,” said Lady 
Bell, showing her acquaintance with the lady’s antecedents. 

“It is she who has made a home for the great Doctor at 


248 


LADY BELL. 


tliat pattern of country houses, Streatham,” continued Sir 
Joshua. ‘‘She has preserved an invaluable life, madam, 
years longer to the country, by taking Dr. Johnson’s health 
under her care, as she has often told us, and by nursing him 
out of some of his worst attacks and most injurious habits. 
Would to God her efforts could continue successful, both with 
him and Mr. Thrale, who is, I fear, in a bad way, and on the 
brink of an apoplexy.” 

“ She deserves all honour,” said Lady Bell warmly. 

“ The more so that her cares seem to sit lightly on her.” 
Captain Fane could not resist the sly hit. 

Lady Bell flashed a little reproach upon him from her eyes, 
which looked as if she were condescending to take his 
manners, as Mrs. Thrale had taken Dr. Johnson’s health, 
under her special superintendence. 

“A matter of temperament,” pronounced the genially 
philosophic painter. 

Sir Joshua, who enjoyed his own reputation as an urbane 
and accomplished man of the world, as he enjoyed most 
things in the pleasantly prosperous places in which his Knes 
were cast, began to talk to Captain Fane of Captain Cook, 
with whom the painter’s friend. Dr. Burney’s son, had made 
a voyage round the world ; and of Sir Joseph Banks’s collec- 
tion of objects of natural history, which Captain Fane had 
seen under the care of young Mr. Jenner, the favourite pupil 
of Dr. Hunter. 

Sir Joshua had made a happy choice of subjects to which 
Captain Fane was alive, and in which he was well informed. 
The gentlemen talked like kindred spirits, while Lady Bell, to 
her credit, was content to remain in the background, and 
listen with deference and delight. She was innocently proud 
of her companion. 

How very different was the figure which Captain Fane cut 
tcf-day, in company with a genius who was at the same time 


SIR JOSHUA AT HOME. 249 

a finished gentleman of any school, from the figure which 
Captain Fane had presented at the sailing-party ! 

What other male friend of Lady Bell’s could have stood so 
severe a test, and come out of it so splendidly? Not Sir 
George Waring, in spite of his elegance and his musical 
talents, any more than Master Charles. Lady Bell was 
deeply impressed hy Captain Fane’s gifts, which he was 
really in the habit of hiding under a bushel. She was 
almost provoked, when Sir Joshua remembered his duty to 
her, not guessing how well pleased she was that he should 
forget it, and began to tell her of the one lady who belonged 
to the Royal Society of Artists, Mrs. Angelica Kauffman. 

It was not a difidcult process to make a digression to those 
ladies who were amateur artists, and to render Lady Bell, in 
spite of her savoii faire, bashfully grateful, by deigning to 
drop a hint for her benefit on the mixing and laying-on of 
colours, and on the drawing of such slight designs as Sir 
Joshua had himself afforded to Foggi for his fans. 

‘‘I thought t’other morning we spent together was very 
happy,” Lady Bell spoke out of the fulness of her heart to 
her squire when they were in the square, and he was looking 
out for a chair that she might get home in time to keep an 
appointment with her mantua-maker ; “ but I shall be always 
recalling this day and its lessons when I am busiest and 
happiest at Summerhill.” 

Don’t you think I shall recall it. Lady BeU,” asked Harry 
Fane, when for a studio in which to busy myself I shall be 
reduced to ‘between decks,’ and for my fine arts shall be 
setting men to rig spars and haul in sails, varied by pointing 
a gun instead of a telescope, and submitting to be carried 
down into the cockpit?” 

“Oh, no; you won’t be carried there!” cried Lady Bell, 
with impetuous haste. 

“At least I did not mean to crave pity from you,” protested 
11 «■ 


250 


LADY BELL. 


Harry, witli unconscious tenderness shaking his firm voice. 
“A grumpy, hulking fellow who has been so much at sea 
that he has lost the manoeuvre of giving a wide berth to 
what displeases his crotchets on shore, is of no good save to 
shout orders in a storm, or to keep a look-out against the 
national enemy.” 

Lady BeU did not contradict him, but she looked in his 
face, somewhat set and lined for a man of his age, but an 
honest and manly face, which had looked its kindest on her, 
the hardness in which she could melt, as she had said, like 
the melting of a block of ice before a meridian sun. 

She gave him a parting look as the chairmen lifted her 
chair, which raised a mighty commotion, for which Lady Bell 
was decidedly answerable, in the blue-coated breast of the 
young man — ^thought so long-headed and calm-hearted, so 
rational, discreet, and obdurate, that he could be let cast stones 
at all the follies and extravagancies of his time. Lady Bell’s 
look said, “ You are good for all that is cleverest, truest, 
bravest — not to the world, perhaps, for you know, none 
better, that the world is a giddy, vicious. Vanity Fair — but to 
me. You need not tell others that I say so, but I say it ; and 
you need not forget that I said it, in the long days during 
which I am mixing with people whom you justly despise, or 
have taken refuge at Summerhill ; and when you are sailing 
on the high seas, doing your duty like a man, guarding our 
shores, and fighting our foea.” 


CHAPTEE XXXIV. 


THE MASQUED BALL IN PROSPECT. 

piAPTAIN PANE, thougli lie was rational, and liad a regard 
for consequences, was fallible, and did not cease to fre- 
quent bis cousin’s bouse in Cleveland Court, because of that 
very inconsiderate look of Lady BeE’s. 

On tbe contrary, be wbo was no dangler in drawing-rooms, 
and was wont to improve bis time in town by going afresb 
over tbe bbraries and museums, and by attending every gather- 
ing and discussion of scientific men, began , to baunt Lady 
Sundon’s rooms, until even tbat bospitably-disposed kins- 
woman could not refrain from an uneasy private comment, 
‘‘ S9metbing’s going to happen to Harry Pane ; be is turning 
up for ever, like a new farthing. He used to make himself 
as scarce and bard to find as a gold guinea, but now be has 
become dirt-cheap, and is always lying about in everybody’s 
way. Lady Bell, Lady Bell, I hope you understand tbat I 
only bade you sort my cousin in jest. I hope tbat you have 
not to answer for a brave sailor’s undoing. He has enough 
of knocking about in tbe open sea, without being run down 
in tbe harbour ; and I consider Harry like a son of my own, 
since bis own folk are all dead and gone.” 

Lady Bell bore tbe unspoken charge as if she were perfectly 
innocent, save tbat even a more brilliant bloom than she bad 
shown lately, glowed in her cheeks and was reflected in her eyes. 


252 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Bell was full of a gaiety of tlie season in wliicli slie 
was about to take a part, and wbicb was novel to her. I 
dare say I shall soon have had enough of the gay world — my 
fling, as you call it, Lady Sundon — ^but I have not yet been 
to a masquerade,” explained Lady Bell; ‘‘I confess that I 
am dying with curiosity to see what it is like. Only fancy 
one’s ordinary neighbours and friends as sultanas and 
chimney-sweeps. Queen Elizabeths and Eichard the Thirds. 
Oh ! I think it must be charmingly romantic and diverting — 
that fun of finding people out, and of baffling their curiosity, 
while you may be as witty as you please and can.” 

All very fine, my dear ; but Comely’ s masquerades were 
not exactly the place for seeing proper company” — Lady 
Sundon played the monitor for once — ‘‘ and at the old Pan- 
theon masquerades, Covent-Grarden women and highwaymen 
used to mix with the regular guests. How could it be other- 
wise, when nobody could tell who was who ?” 

“Yet you all went to these places, my dear Lady Sundon,’’ 
Lady Bell coaxed her friend, “ and riots have gone out of 
fashion. Besides, this masquerade is to be given by the 
gentlemen of White’s. They are to have lady patronesses. 
At an hour fixed upon, each lady and gentleman is to 
unmask, so that one could not be safer in a private house. 
Indeed I am very glad that the gentlemen of White’s are 
to be prodigiously gaUant, and give a masquerade ball this 
year, when I happen to be in town. Tickets must be pro- 
cured for you and Nancy and Lyddy, Lady Sundon ; of 
course they must. I’U never rest till the deficiency is sup- 
plied; I’ll not stir a foot, or order a costume, without you.” 

Lady Bell referred to the circumstance that in consequence 
of the run on masquerade tickets, and the ultra exclusive- 
ness of the set issuing them, only one ticket to Lady BeU 
Trevor had found its way to Cleveland Court. “ So Nancy' 
and Lyddy -are down in the mouth,” Lady Sundon said; 


THE MASQUED BALL IN PROSPECT. 


253 


“ and for myself, I own I’m an old fool ; but if tbe affair 
is to be above board, I’d give my two ears yet to see tbe 
play.” 

There was less difficulty for gentlemen in getting admit- 
tance, and when Lady Bell, the moment the club masquerade 
was announced, raised her eager voice in its favour. Captain 
Fane had only to speak to a brother officer, who was a 
member of the club', in order to have a ticket. Harry Fane 
made a specious excuse to Lady Sundon for his haste to 
countenance this vanity. 

“It is not that I approve of such an entertainment; I 
have heard from yourself that it is one of the most lax and 
perilous in an age of ridottos and public gardens — the more 
reason why as many sober and virtuous people as can make 
an entrance, should use their right to confront th# foolish and 
vicious, and protect the innocent and unwary.” 

“ Harry, don’t draw scores before my nose,” objected Lady 
Sundon emphatically, and when the gentleman moved away 
discomfited, she concluded her remark for her own benefit, 
“ as if you would have been in such a case to act as a body- 
guard even to me and Nancy and Lyddy! The grand passion 
has much to answer for, in playing such pranks with a staid, 
sensible fellow, who has very little patrimony besides his 
pay, and ought to know he is not a fit match for my Lady 
Bell. I meant that his comb should be cut, for he carried it 
over high ; but I’m frighted that it is done only too closely. 
And he’s my own flesh and blood, though Lady Bell is a 
charming young woman, and I could eat her, I have taken to 
her so hugely. Besides, it is a credit and pleasure to show 
her about in town, which is in the habit of thinking naught 
of the wares of a country body like me.” 

Lady Bell’s influence would have gained the tickets which 
were wanting, but, in the interval before the ball, there came 
the threat of a family calamity that effectually prevented the 


254 


LADY BELL. 


Sundons’ attendance, and very nearly put a stop to Lady 
Bell’s making acquaintance with, the delights of a mas- 
querade. 

Word arrived that Lady Sundon’s only child, the son and 
heir of the family, had met with a dangerous accident, by a 
fall from a tree, in one of the meadows near his grammar 
school, a week before. He had not recovered his senses 
when the letter was written, though the chances were, from 
the number of days which had elapsed, that the hurt must 
have yielded, so far, to medical skill. A fatal termination 
would have caused the despatch of a special messenger, 
who would have reached London and preceded the announce- 
ment of the accident in the slow course of post. 

But great was the hurry and distress. Poor Lady Sundon 
prepared to set out instantly for the scene of the accident, to 
nurse her son, should she find him alive to be nursed by her. 

The Misses Sundon, who had been wont to utter, as loudly 
as the plaintiveness of their reproaches would permit, charges 
of undue preference on the part of Sir Peter for his boy over 
his girls, and of gross indulgence and spoiling on the part of 
the boy’s mother, were sufiiciently kindly women, in spite of 
their follies, to be cut up by their half-brother’s danger, and 
to forget altogether, in their roused and alarmed affection, 
that they had insisted on electing themselves the young 
master’s rivals. 

Lyddy Sundon, who was the more energetic of the sisters, 
would not hear of any other arrangement than that she 
should accompany Lady Sundon in her journey, and remain 
with her, to assist in nursing the little lad. , 

Lady Sundon, whose rosy, elderly face was purple with 
subdued excitement, while she could not keep the moisture 
out of her eyes by the repeated furtive movement of her hand 
across her face, did not fail to be touched by the token of 
respect and regard. ‘‘I’m sure it’s very good of you. 


’L'HK MASQUED BALL IN PROSPECT. 255 

Lyddy,” the mother said, with all her heart. “I ain’t 
likely to forget it, no, nor your father neither ; and I trust 
my Ned will remember it when he is a man, for, by Giod’s 
mercy, he may live to see us out yet.” 

Nancy Sundon undertook to devote herself, in his wife’s 
absence, to the care ef Sir Peter, naturally suffering more 
than ever, though he was didven for the moment to forget his 
own sufferings. 

‘ ‘ But our trouble, which may end well, for all that is come 
and gone, please God, is not your trouble. Lady Bell, so go 
to your masquerade yourself, my dear,” the good-natured 
woman told Lady BeU at parting. “I’ll take ‘ The Cries of 
London ’ to amuse Neddy, as you wish, and thank you 
heartily for the thought. But I am sure it would vex any 
child of mine on his bed, as it would vex me, if he could 
know that he was keeping you, who have nothing to do with 
him, poor boy, save in your good will, from a grand treat. 
Go when it is your day, and enjoy yourself with the best. 
Lady Bell, bless you ! We don’t grudge you the enjoyment, 
though we have come to grief.” 

“Sure, you don’t ; but never think of me, my dear Lady 
Sundon ; may a blessing and the best of luck go with you. 
I hope and pray that you* will find your boy a great deal 
better than you expect, and that we shall all have such a 
merry meeting again that the finest masquerade will be 
thrown into the shade.” And Lady Bell fully meant to give 
up the masquerade. 

But scarcely had Lady Sundon and Lyddy set out, when 
another deliberate post letter arrived in Cleveland Court, with 
the cheering tidings that the sufferer was doing well, and was 
likely to recover without sustaining any material and perma- 
nent injury from his fall. 

The chief source of anxiety was removed, and Lady Bell 
was free to resume her intention of being present at the ball, 


256 


LADY BELL. 


and was not reduced to eclipse its splendour by being absent, 
as a tbrong of the giyers of the feast were ready to profess. 
Miss Sundon might have accompanied Lady Bell, but the 
former preferred, on the whole, after the late shock to her 
nerves, to remain a martyr to her new responsibility, and to 
relapse into luxuriating tenderly over the last grievance. 

Lady Bell, in her widowed dignity, could dispense with a 
companion. She knew, moreover, with an idle, exultant 
throb, thM in addition to her many admirers, more or less 
fervent, and'more or less men of many ties, with their hearts 
split into segments, and distributed pretty equally over a 
select circle of fashionable belles, there was one man who 
would only see her in the motley company, who was in it for 
her sake, who, crusty, cantankerous sailor as she had judged 
him at first, needed but a wave of her hand, and a glance of 
her eye, to be at her side, at her feet. 

Lady Bell, whether she confessed it to herself or not, went 
on to draw conclusions from the significant circumstance that 
Captain Fane, of his own free-will, departed from his rule 
and put himself about to be one in a scene so unpalatable to 
his tastes as this masquerade. 

Lady Bell did more. She looked within, and she recog- 
nised with a breathless flutter of mingled wonder, trepidation, 
and bliss, an astounding fact. The chief glory of the mas- 
querade to her would be the presence of this quondam growl- 
ing and grave young ofidcer. 

Lady Bell was pei'fectly aware that Harry Fane, though 
well-born, was poor, and fhat-^while she believed he was an 
excellent officer, and while she had heard him speak like a 
natural philosopher to a man of genius — he was a fellow of 
no mark in her fashionable world. His very profession was 
against him in some respects. 

Lady Bell well knew that Captain Fane would be reckoned 
a most unsuitable match, the poorest j^a/rti for a beauty, a 


THE MASQUED. BALL IN PROSPECT. 


257 


Lady Bell, a young widow who had begun her career of 
worldly prosperity very fairly, and had then taken the world 
by storm. Was she ^o end by wantonly squandering her 
advantages, for which she had paid dearly enough in her 
day ; was she to slight the great matches that might be in 
store for her, the coronets, the amorous squires, richer than 
Trevor of Trevor Court, the exquisite beaux like Sir George 
Waring, for so sober and in the world’s eyes so insignificant 
a figure? Was she, as a lovely widow, rather to copy the 
example of the Duchess of Manchester with her Irishman, of 
whom all the world had talked, or that of the Duchess of 
Leinster with her Scotchman, of whom all the world was talk- 
ing, in stooping to confer grace, than follow the lead of Lady 
Waldegrave in aiming as high as the gusty neighbourhood 
of a throne? Lady Bell laughed in mockery of herself a 
little hysterically. She made a feint of trying to find time 
and heart to scold herself, and at the same time she blushed 
like a rose at the mere thought, and trembled with a newly- 
discovered happiness. 


CHAPTER XXXy. 


■THE MASQTTED BALL AS IT BEGAN IN REALITY. 

Y BELL was coy. SLe was provoking, slie was wilful, 



and she was perverse, in the strange gladness which was 
so dashed with emotion, hut of which she strove hard, and 
almost succeeded, to show only the frolicksome side. 

“ I shan’t tell you what I am going to wear, Captain 
Pane,” Lady Bell said, “ and you are not to tell me whether 
you are to be a peasant or a prince. I shall put my fingers 
in my ears if you do. I mean to keep my secret. I tell you 
all the fun will be in finding each other out.” “As if I could 
not find him out among a thousand,” she said to herself, 
while her glance fell beneath his reproachful gaze, “and if 
he should be too stupid to guess me under a disguise,” she 
added — always for her own satisfaction — “why I can take off 
my mask and enlighten him at any moment.” 

Captain Pane was forced to submit, thinking in some mea- 
sure, as his mistress thought, “Well, the information before- 
hand would only be a precaution to save time. However 
crowded the rooms may be, she can never eludb me.” 

But neither Lady Bell nor Captain Pane had ever been at 
a masquerade ball. On the lad^ and gentleman’s separate 
arrivals, after a way had been made through the excited 
crowd which pressed about the doors and pushed into the 
lobby of the club itself, and was driven back by watchmen, in 


THE MASQUED BALL IN REALITY. 


259 


order to witness the spectacle of the season, the scene which 
presented itself was one of wild disorder. 

A great assemblage of pretentious and grotes(][ue figures, 
who for the most part could do little else to assume foreign 
and cast-off native characters, strutted, stalked, shambled, 
stamped, bawled, growled, and squeaked amidst a chorus of 
loud remarks, shouts of laughter, and roars of derision. 
Communication between all save the initiated was next to 
impossible. 

, Lady Bell and Captain Fane lost themselves, and what was 
worse could not find each other, incontinently, and in spite of 
the magnet which each formed for the other, and the conclu- 
sive test which each believed he or she could apply to the 
other. 

“ This is the very paradise of fools,” thought the not very 
tolerant sailor, as he elbowed his way along, and doggedly 
resisted the audacious attacks on his notice made in very 
wantonness, or on mistaken premises. 

“No, I won’t ogle that intolerable shepherdess. Lady Bell 
never perpetrated such a crook. 

“ If Columbus keep raking me with his glass, as if I sailed 
in command of his ship’s consort. I’ll be tempted to give him 
a knock on the head with his own telescope. He sad a carvel 
or discover new lands ! He is only fit for the tub of that 
Diogenes which Dick Turpin has kicked over ! 

“What a. game for grown men and women! all the rank, 
wealth, and intelligence of England engaged in it, as the 
news prints wiU have it to-morrow. 

“ Where on earth can Lady Bell be ? She is not that fair 
one with the locks of gold — borrowed locks clearly — over her 
own dark hair. No, this lady is several inches too tall, and 
she walks like a stork, instead of footing it like a fairy. 

“Crossing the line is a joke to this. The Jack Tars have 
more point in their gambols. Avast I Yonder goes Neptune 


LADY BELL. 


2 Co 

with his trident, summoned by my words from the vasty deep. 
But I’ll have none of him. I have enough of him on his own 
element, to be let off from the contact here. 

‘‘Lady Bell is not walking in the minuet. What does she 
mean by thus giving me the slip ? How do I know what 
harm she may be running into in the confounded freedom of 
this masquerade ? All the rage is for adventures, pleasant or 
impleasant. I suppose every pretty woman will be mortally 
disappointed if she do not have her share. Oh heavens ! the 
folly of women, and oh heavens ! the folly of men — of a pre- . 
tended Timon in a shabby blue jacket for thinking to mend 
them.” 

But Captain Fane was not there in a blue jacket, shabby 
or otherwise, else he might not have sought far and wide in 
vain. He had, between ignorance and a spice of spite at 
Lady Bell, because she would not afford him a clue to her 
character for the evening, taken no more distinctive disguise 
than one of the abounding black dominoes or loose cloaks, of 
which there were scores in the room, worn by lazy, shy, or 
proud men and women, many of the former of much the same 
height as Captain Fane. 

After aU the domino, as proved by continental patronage, 
and by its invariable use on the part of those who had covert 
designs to prosecute at this or any other masquerade, was the 
one sufficient and safe disguise in which men and women 
could glide here and there, and appear and disappear miracu- 
lously in the crowd! 

But wearers of doniinoes who wished to be known, must 
wait for the late hour when every guest was to remove his or 
her mask, and step forth in proper identity. 

Captain Fane’s temper was not his strong point, and his 
disposition was not accommodating. He was too ruffled and 
piqued to receive any comfort from the prospect of a humili- 
ating confession of defeat, and a petition for mercy. 


THE MASQUED BALL IN REALITY. 


26 1 


In the meantime, if her vexed partner could have known 
it, poor Lady Bell was not enjoying this masquerade, to 
which she had looked forward with keen, girlish zest and a 
softer interest. She had the sore humiliation — granted it 
was by her own fault — to be recognised by a multitude of her 
set, of Mrs. Lascelles’ friends and of Lady Bell’s danglers, and 
yet to remain unrecognised by the one man whose recognition 
she craved. 

Lady Bell had dressed herself as a gipsy fortune-teller, in 
a remarkably respectable rustic gown — for a gipsy, in the 
authentic red cloak and kerchief over her head, with a pack 
of incorrectly clean cards. But, unfortunately, fortune-telling, 
though not so plentiful as blackberries or dominoes, abounded 
to the degree that Captain Fane, himself undistinguished, 
passed at a little distance without eliciting a spark of the 
magnetic influence, the very woman who was swaying him 
in spite of his reason, and almost of his conscience, who was 
Ailing him with a strong, untrained heart’s concentrated 
love, which in contrast with the calculating spent loves of 
the jaded hearts around, was At to work like madness in 
the brain. 

Lady Bell was greatly chagrined, half angry with Captain 
Fane for being horribly, unaccountably stupid', half doubtful, 
with a pang, if he who continued hidden from her, as she 
from him, were really in the room. Something might have 
happened, a sudden appointment to a ship, an accident — his 
being stopped, and wounded as well as robbed, on his way to 
the ball — or a malicious story heard to her discredit, for he 
was precise in his notions, and stern in upholding them, as 
she knew from her experience at the water-party. 

Sailors had two standing-points ffom which they regarded 
women. The one standing-point was that of coarser salt- 
water Lovelaces and Lotharios, to whom no woman was 
sacred, and who trusted none. The other was that of Turks, 


262 


LADY BELL. 


who locked up their women in western harems, and exacted 
from the women the meekest domesticity. 

Harry Fane was no profligate Lovelace, Lady Bell was 
sure ; hut she was not equally certain that he might not 
develop into a rigid, caustic captain of his own household. 

Lady Bell had murmured loudly at the moroseness of 
poor old Squire Trevor, when she, as a silly child, had tried 
his patience ; should* she not he a fool indeed to put herself, 
as a woman, in the power of another master ? 

And this would not he a fine gentleman who might neglect 
and he unfaithful to her, and still he suave and tolerant to 
her faults, having consideration of his own grievous sins. 

This would he another sour and savage man, rendered a 
hundred times more formidable in his prime hy the weapons 
which her love and his would put into his hands to pierce 
hoth their hearts. 

Yet she was old and wise enough to know that infinitely 
worse might hefall her. What a poor chance there was for 
women of her class and culture in life ! Humbler women 
might he more stolid, less alive to their injuries, abler to keep 
their own.. 

^ These were sad reflections to qualify the noisy nonsense of 
a masqueradei Lady Bell was very sorry for herself, and 
soon grew weary of the amusement. She discovered that it 
was rarely dependent on the lively cleverness which could 
enter into the spirit of the game and play it out well. The 
hall was kept up rather by the impudence and effrontery 
which could break through every restraint, and could ad- 
minister and endorse, without flinching, the rudest rebuffs. 

The Troubadours, King Alfreds, and Friar Tucks, the 
Abbesses, Beggar Girls, and Sapphos, aimed more frequently 
at outraging than at expressing their r6le8. It was regarded 
as the best joke when the Troubadour flung away his guitar, 
King Alfred hobnobbed with Captain Macheath,* and Friar 


THE MASQUED BALL IN REALITY. 263 

Tuck swam, sauntered, and sniffed at a vinaigrette. In like 
manner fair applause was won by the Abbess entering into 
an open flirtation with a soldier of fortune ; by the Beggar 
Girl complaining peevishly of the liberties taken by a courtier, 
who had trodden on her beggar’s trappings ; and by Sappho, 
while oppressed with a “ snivelling cold,” and beset by a 
most pronounced Devonshire dialect, indulging in entirely 
prosaic and matter-of-fact remarks. 

No doubt, the abuse of the characters adopted, was a great 
deal more easily attained than the use would have been, and, 
making allowance for the average limits of human intellect, 
the people were wise in their generation. But the effect was 
disappointing to an. enthusiastic young Lady Bell. 

The affair did not stop at a brilliant burlesque — it went as 
far as an earlier screaming farce. 

Lady Bell began to grow timid and nervous as the mirth 
grew faster and more furious. She clung to the support of 
any acquaintance such as Mrs. Lascelles — who, the wish being 
father to the thought, possibly, personated the widow loved 
by Sir Eoger de Coverley — in passing through the heaving, 
changing groups. 

Captain Fane was wrong in one suspicion : Lady Bell did 
not seek adventures. On the contrary, when she saw the 
bold license to which they tended, she shrank back from 
them ; she had very soon ceased to play the rustic fortune- 
teller, as she had begun to play it with innocent spirit and 
pains. She was ashamed of thinking of acting where hardly 
any one else acted. 


CHAPTEE XXXVI. 


THE “common domino.” 

T AEY BELL continued, however, to pay the penalty for the 
^ choice of a character, by being accosted on the part of 
numerous Indian conjurers, sailors, and Eoman emperors, all 
uniting in the demand that she should tell them their fortunes. 
Neither was the demand made in formal histrionic phrase, 
but in free and easy modern language, spoken by voices 
teasingly familiar to her. 

But Lady Bell was so bewildered and vexed because all her 
boasted penetration had failed her, that not having succeeded 
in detecting the one, she would not take the trouble to 
identify the many. She guessed that some of these masquers 
were Sir George Waring, Lord Boscobel, Colonel Selby ; but 
she did not care to come to a decision. What was it to her 
who they were ? 

The gentlemen were not so indifferent or irresolute about 
the secret of the graceful little fortune-teller. Eine gentle- 
men though they were, and at their own ball, they were 
importunate and aggressive, until their advances became irk- 
some and offensive to Lady Bell. She grew sick of them, 
and the whole riotous company, and wished herself with all 
her heart well out of it — out of town — back to her peaceful 
Summerhill, with her calm, beneficent Mrs. Sundon. 

Lady Bell absolutely dediiied doing any more palmistry, 


THE “COMMON DOMINO.” 


265 


and put off the pressing claimants on her powers with as 
much determination as she could summon to her aid on the 
spur of the moment. 

“ No, no, sirs, the stars are not in the ascendant,” she said, 
with a very sincere sigh, “the cards won’t shuffle. You must 
go to another fortune-teller.” 

“To no other, most unpropitious Sybil,” asserted one 
voice. 

“Let me shuffle your cards,” suggested another, offering 
to take the tools of Lady Bell’s trade for the night out of 
her hands. 

“I’ll cross your hand with gold, my girl,” said a third, 
and at the same time presumed to seize Lady Bell’s disen- 
gaged hand. 

Lady Bell was roused to a more energetic renunciation of 
her character. 

“ I won’t be bribed. See here ! ” she cried. 

And raising the spread-out pack of cards, she scattered 
them far and near. 

Her action was partly misunderstood, and some of her 
followers stopped to pick up the cards, as Lady Bell had 
hoped they would. She moved on directly, but in the little 
scuffle she had already been separated from her party. For 
the moment the crowd had closed in between them, and Lady 
Bell found herself alone in her disguise, exposed to rougher 
horse-play. 

Any masquer who saw a woman alone in the crowd, might 
regard her, charitably, in Captain Fane’s strain, as a lady 
looking out for adventures. Whether so looking out, or 
innocent of such an intention, the mere fact of her having 
foolishly exposed herself, constituted her good game for the 
buffoonery of the masquerade. 

Yet Lady BeU’s trepidation did not amount to panic, and 
she assured herself that it was siUy, for she had simply to 
12 


266 


LADY BELI.. 


take off liei mask, and show that ske was Lady Bell Trevor, 
in order to find friends, and be freed from molestation. Any 
woman wko kad ever sustained a serious misadventure at a 
masquerade, like most women wko sustained misadventures 
in a wider spkere — tke world, kad only been too willing to 
undergo tke infliction, or kad yielded to a private reason for 
risking it, and either way kad tkemselves to tkank for tkeir 
humiliation. 

But Lady Bell was certainly unwilling to plead helpless- 
ness, crave pity, and virtually acknowledge that her natural 
dignity did* not stand her in good stead. Moreover, tke 
acknowledgment ought not to he required of her ; for already 
some who knew her, as she was convinced, though it was 
tkeir present cue to conceal tkeir knowledge, were there. Sir 
George Waring and Colonel Selby, tke first as Sir Eoger de 
Coverley, tke second as tke Lord Chancellor of England, kad 
come up with her, holding some of her cards in tkeir hands. 

Lady Bell was tired, shaken. She could think of no other 
resource than that of flying from her persecutors with as 
muck speed as she could command, or tke crowd would allow. 
While she hurried along she held down her head, and tried 
not to listen to besieging addresses, suggesting in her attitude 
something of tke aspect of Ferdinand seeking vainly to shake 
off Ariel’s tricksy sprites ; notwithstanding that Lady Bell’s 
foes were of more solid substance. 

The group arrested the attention of a domino, who at once 
made for it, catching up by chance as he did so one of the 
fortune-teller’s cards which dropped from a gentleman’s hand. 
While he joined in the pursuit, which was attracting notice, 
he heard bets laid on the race that caused his blood to boil, 
little as bets meant at a time when men wagered on drops 
running down a window-pane, on an old woman’s hobbling, 
or on the hours that a sick man might live. 

The prize might be nothing to Captain Fane, for it was 


THE “COMMON DOMINO." 


267 


possibly a case of mistaken identity where he was concerned ; 
and even if he were in the right, he was ignorant and jealous 
of Lady Bell’s reason for keeping herself hidden from him, as 
it seemed. 

It might very well be that she would resent his interference. 
He could not help remembering, though she had sought to 
atone for it, how she had treated his opposition at the water- 
party. 

He might reap no thanks, only anger and disgust as the 
result of his officiousness. But for her sake he would venture 
aU. 

He scrawled with his pencil on the card which he had 
appropriated. “ Ho you wish to get away and go home 
without waiting for the unmasking ? I shall put you into a 
chair — say yes, and I shall be satisfied that I am right.” 

He pushed forward in advance of the others and thrust the 
card into Lady Bell’s hand. 

She glanced mechanically at the writing, with which she 
was not sufficiently acquainted for it to show the writer. But 
the electric shock was given at last, she had not the slightest 
fear of trusting herself with that domino. “Oh yes!” she 
drew a long sigh of relief and joy, standing still and speaking 
in her natural tones. 

“A swindle, a cheat, madam,” shouted the wildest of her 
train ; ‘ ‘ you decline to read our fortunes, and you answer the 
first question put to you by an interloper.” 

“ Gentlemen, ” interposed the domino, speaking in cold 
tones of indisputable authority and sober reason, “the lady 
is fatigued with the foolery, and wishes to go home, i 
suppose you do not interfere with the inclinations of your 
guests ? ” 

The gentlemen looked at each other and paused discomfited. 

“ Sold, by Jove I” 

“ I wish you joy. Sir George, of your successful rival.” 


268 


LADY BELL. 


‘‘Devil take kim, wko can lie be? never beard tbat my 
lady bad any troublesome appendage — country cousin, parson 
in disguise, former busband come alive again, recent busband 
come to light.” 

Before tbe exclamations burst forth, the domino was leading 
the fortune-teller through tbe crowd, compelling a passage 
for her, to tbe door of tbe room, out into tbe vestibule, and 
down the stairs, at tbe foot of which they stopped, and be 
bade a watchman call a chair, 

. Then Lady Bell took off her mask, and be pulled off bis, 
’and each smiled forgiving and forgiven in tbe face of tbe 
other, while tbe servants and their company thought tbe two 
a proper couple (though Harry was no Adonis), and on plain 
enough terms. 

But the lady and gentleman were not bent on one of tbe 
clandestine expeditions and frantic escapades in which mas- 
querades frequently ended, since they would not set about it 
barefaced. Therefore the pair being manifestly honest, were 
left to themselves, unmolested by the kind souls that liked to 
look on them at a little distance. For anything more Lady 
Bell and Captain Fane were deficient to the apprehension of 
their more or less debased fellow-creatures in what are to 
them essential elements of thrilling interest — crime and shame. 

“ I am so glad to get out of it — shall never wish to go to 
a masquerade again. But could you find no better disguise 
than a common domino ? ” Lady Bell began to recover her- 
self, and to pout the least in the world. “ There were scores 
of dominoes like this,” she hinted regretfully, putting a little 
finger shyly on a fold of the objectionable domino. 

“ Could my Lady Bell not dress up herself more fitly than 
in the cloak of a gipsy fortune-teller, when there were crowns 
and sceptres, wands and wings, in the room? ” the gentleman 
reproached his partner with delirious fervour, softly grasping 
a corner of the maligned cloak. 


THE “COMMON DOMINO.** 


269 

“I saw no acting,” cried Lady Bell in a flurry, to render 
tlie conversation less personal. “A strolling troop, in a 
barn, would bave managed infinitely better. This was all 
fudge and lampooning. I did not ask for true acting, but I 
expected soflietbing nearer to it from persons of refinement 
and education. I am going to bave tbe real thing to- 
morrow.” 

“ Tell me where. Lady Bell,” be solicited directly. 

“ I am going to tbe play, sir, tbe veritable play ; no wonder 
everybody rushes to Covent Garden and Drury Lane, though 
some pretend that there are private theatricals worth listening 
to, I should feel inclined to doubt it, after to-night. I am to 
have a box in company with Miss Greathead of Guy’s Cliff, 
who knows Mrs. Siddons — she is taking the Londoners’ hearts 
by storm, after they nearly broke her heart years ago.” 

“ How do you know that ? ” he asked for the mere sake of 
hearing her speak and detaining her a moment longer. 

“ Oh, I know Mrs. Siddons finely,” she sparkled back upon 
him, enjoying what she imagined to be his curiosity, “ and 
perhaps some day,” she lowered her voice inadvertently and 
the tell-tale colour leapt up in her cheeks^ “ I shall tell you 
how she and I came to be personal friends. You have never 
seen her. Then you have never seen such a genius on the 
boards. Miss Yates is nothing to her ; she ecKpses Mr. 
Garrick himself.” 

He was not caring for geniuses on the boards at that 
moment, however much he might care for them at another. 
What were the stage and its stars to Harry Fane, when Lady 
Bell had availed herself of his assistance, had preferred his 
protection to that of any man of her set at the masquerade, 
and when the words, “ Some day I shall tell you how she 
and I came to be personal friends,” were ringing sweetly 
in his ears ? 


OHAPTEE XXXVn. 


ROMEO AND JDLIET ON THE STAGE, AND IN LADY BELL TREVOR 
AND MISS GREATHEAd’s BOX. 

'rTAEEY FANE found it easier to join Lady Bell in her box 
with Miss Greathead at Covent Garden, than at the 
masquerade ball. Notwithstanding that, the tide which had 
turned and was bearing the great actress on to fortune, was 
so full in its rush, that the crowd at White’s was nothing to 
the jammed mass filling to suffocation the huge theatre. 

In the private box Miss Greathead, the other “Lady of 
Quality ” was considerate and generous. 

She had been telling Lady Bell that she remembered when 
Miss Kemble came to Miss Greathead’s mother’s house in 'the 
capacity of a waiting gentlewoman. She had struck every- 
body by her commanding beauty and her magnificent read- 
ing, and she had secured the friendship of each member of 
the family, so that though she soon quitted Guy’s Cliff to be 
married to her rejected lover, and to return to the boards — 
her true sphere — ^her friends continued to watch her struggles 
and her progress with interest and rejoicing. So long as she 
and they lived, Sarah Siddons would be welcome among the 
Greatheads. 

Miss Greathead brought her story to a close abruptly, and 
made room for the young officer in naval uniform. 

He looked a quiet, reserved, brave man, rather than a 


271 


, ROMEO ANb jJLIEl ON THE STAGE. 

crowing, bullying cock of fasbion. At tbe same time be bad 
been indefatigable in scaling banisters, and leaping partitions 
in order to reach tbe door of Lady BeU Trevor and Miss 
Greatbead’s box. He deserved tbe seat wbicb be bad won 
next Lady Bell, though, poor fellow, be might not fill it 
long — and it might be to bis loss that be filled it at aU. 

Miss Greatbead in her woman’s heart, while she counselled 
expediency and condemned imprudence with tbe rest of tbe 
quabty, guessed what sitting together for an hour or two was 
to a couple between whom there might soon roll tbe seas 
wbicb divide an old world from a new, and these seas alive 
with transports, frigates, squadrons, hastening to meet tbe 
tug of war. 

The pair were young fools (Miss Greatbead was shocked at 
Lady Bell Trevor — tbe daughter of an earl, though a spend- 
thrift earl, a jointured widow, though her jointure was not 
great, while the ofSicer by his uniform was no more than 
a Captain, and was not a private “ fortune,” else he could 
hardly have failed to be known by name to Miss Greatbead — 
she could not think what Lady Bell meant by thus preparing 
misery for herself and another). But what would you have ? 
such fools abounded, would not the world be worse if it 
wanted them? Mrs. Siddons was about to play just such 
another fool. 

At least the sailor must fill his seat as a silent partner, for 
Mrs. Siddons’ acting, and the pit which hung breathless on 
her words, permitted no chatter in the boxes or elsewhere. 

The play was that of Romeo and Juliets 

When Mrs. Siddons took the pai-t of Juliet, she ventured 
on a new and bold stroke in the middle of her success. Since 
Lady Bell, a fancy-free childish girl, though a fugitive wife, 
had been stirred to weep and smile, and hang breathless over 

* This is a double anachronism, Mrs. Siddons did not play in town 
again till later, and did not play Juliet till later still. 


272 


LADY BELL. 


the histories of Isabella, Mrs. Beverley, and Euphrasia, Mrs. 
Siddons had risen to a much loftier range of characters, to her 
mature masterpieces of Lady Macbeth, Constance, and Queen 
Katherine. 

But for that very reason it appeared doubtful if she could 
descend frotn her height of ripe majestic matronhood to the 
dramatist’s idea of a single-heai’ted love-lorn Italian girl. 
Even Mrs. Siddons’ superbly developed personal traits might 
turn to faults and work against her in the attempt to per- 
sonate the slender, tender daughter of the Capulets. 

But no sooner did the enchantress come before her judges 
and begin to weave her spells, than the velvet eyes, with 
their rich lashes, the white pillars of arms with their regal 
sweep, became the fond dreamy eyes, the loving, clinging 
arms inspired by the soul of youthful, radiant, all- defying 
passion in Juliet. 

These two — ^Lady Bell and Captain Eane — ^looked at and 
listened to their own story. True, they were not of suffi- 
ciently mighty quality to belong to great rival houses, but 
the couple belonged in a measure to different classes. Lady 
Bell might aspire to prospects as far ahead of the naval 
captain at her side, though he was born and bred in her 
rank, as were a Yice- Admiral’s commission, and Westminster 
Abbey. 

The circumstance that the difference between Lady Bell 
and Captain Eane was comparatively slight, only rendered it 
more cruel if it were to part them, since it did anything save 
prevent the rose from smelling as sweet. 

To sit together at such a play interpreted by so consum- 
mate an actress, and an actor who was not immeasurably 
behind her, was to sit like the guilty King and Queen of 
Denmark and witness their crime shadowed forth by the 
players. But whereas it was the past which was held up 
before the shrinking eyes of the Eoyal Danes, it seemed a 


ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE. 273 

dazzling glimpse of tlie future which was vouchsafed to these 
lovers. 

The secret of Lady Bell and Captain Fane, so far as it had 
remained any secret to them, was spoken out in Shakespeare’s 
words and by Siddons’ and Kemble’s voices. The true lovers 
there of whom the others were but a vivid realisation, sat 
with heaving breasts, flushed faces, and eyes flxed on the 
stage, and dared not glance at each other (did not need to for 
that matter), each to understand what the other felt— ^save 
once or twice. 

At the masqued ball in the Oapulets’ house, when fortune 
favoured the brave so signally as to And the daring intruder 
his flt partner in the daughter of the hoifee, in a trice. Captain 
Fane and Lady Bell turned simultaneously to smile to each 
other and to afi“ord the opportunity for the whisper on his 
part, “ That fellow was in luck — ^he was not long in receiving 
his prize.” 

At the first suggestion of a private marriage, Captain Fane 
again sought and received a look as by irresistible fascination. 
“ Do you mark that ?” said the swift meaning glance of his 
eyes, before which Lady Bell’s eyes swam and fell as they 
had never swum and fallen before. 

There might have been many more pairs of lovers in the 
great crowded house that night, taking to themselves, and 
making a personal matter of the play and its playing, thus 
failing to view it in a speculative and critical light. 

But there was absolutely nobody to whom Shakespeare and 
the Kembles were rant and fustian, who was moved to laugh 
when the players wept, or to joke and shrug when they raved. 

There was something marvellous in the unanimity of the 
sympathy, in the multitude swayed like one man by the poet 
and the players, till the old Italian tragedy in its passion 
and its piteousness lived again. 

Women clasped their hands and prayed for mercy on the 
12* T . ■ 


274 


LADY BELL. 


young lovers, sobbed as Juliet drank the potion and com- 
posed herself to the semblance — too complete — of death, — and 
shrieked and swooned when Romeo met Paris at the tomb — 
when swords were crossed and the boy husband who believed 
himself widowed in the green accomplishment of his vows, 
piercing and pierced, fell for ever. 

Men drew long breaths, and swore deep oaths as over their 
professional contests, their tussles in Parliament, their meet- 
ings- at Chalk Farm, their long seats at the green board. 

We have it on recent record, that in one row in the orchestra 
there sat to see Mrs. Siddons play, men whose names are 
not forgotten, no, nor will be, “Reynolds, Burkfe, Gribbon, 
Sheridan, Windham, •Fox.” These men were not babies, but 
“the tears were seen running down their dark faces.” 

The theatre was a power in those days, and the excitement 
which crossed and suspended the excitement of gaming 
tables and lottery drawings, was in the main a wholesome 
and saving excitement. Mrs. Siddons made a figure in Lady 
Bell’s history which sounds strange nowadays. Not only did 
the actress chance to interfere between the girl and imminent 
destitution, an incident which might in itself be passed over 
like any other fortuitous incident, but at the crisis of Lady 
Bell’s history, John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons played Romeo 
and Juliet, before Captain Fane and Lady Bell, and the 
playei^ had much to answer for. 

A great deal which did come to pass might never have 
been. Human nature partially roused might have struggled 
in vain with its swaddling-bands, and sunk back into hope- 
less helplessness, unable’ to compass, within the course of 
a few days, its deliverance by one bold stroke. The oppor- 
tunity once lost might never have returned. But in the very 
striking of the clock Romeo and Juliet was played. 

What hearts must have been stirred to their depths by the 
grand acting of the grand old players ! What moral revolu- 


ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE. 


275 


tions must have been wrought out, what life and death 
actions compelled — transforming ordinary men and women 
into heroes and heroines ! It would be curious if it were 
possible to make such a reckoning. 

It may be said to the sceptical of such influences who have 
only sought for them in the theatre of to-day, what woman 
shrieks and swoons in the theatre -now? what man, even, is 
seized with strong hysterics, as happened once, among,, the 
throng who panted, sweated, and quivered to leap^ on the 
stage, rush to the rescue, or be in at the death ? 

We live in a hypercritical and cynical age, and are proud 
of the fact. We should never have been touched by Dr. 
Dodd’s enunciation of ‘‘Mesopotamia” — it is to be feared not 
even by Greorge Whitfield’s breathing forth of “amen,” 
neither by the sham nor by the reality. 

Besides, we are misled by visions of our ancestors taking 
snuff and looking on at executions, and think that they felt 
very little, and that in the wrong place. Whereas we are 
the very same men and women, except that we are triply 
bound by certain refinements and restraints, and are pleased 
to hug our bonds. 

Lady Bell had cried with the best, palpitated and quaked 
over Borneo and Juliet. She had never once felt disturbed 
by the remembrance, as a modern playgoer would have felt 
disturbed — nay, would have taken credit for the feeling, that 
she had been behind the scenes with this J uliet, had helped 
her to nurse her children, add up her bills, and eat her 
prosaic meals. 

Lady BeU was not so carping and invidious. She was 
more womanly ; she was inclined to go to the opposite ex- 
treme in her reception of the play and in the effect which it 
had upon her. 

“ This Juliet was a sweet victim,” Miss Greathead had 
declared, wiping her eyes when all was over. “ But one 


276 


LADY BELL. 


must confess she had little more than her deserts. How 
would it be with any girl in our days, who could be as 
disobedient and deceitful and monstrously rash as Mistress 
Juliet showed herself ? ” 

“ Oh, Miss Greathead,” protested Lady Bell, forgetting 
everything in the eagerness of her argument, ‘‘ I don’t go in 
for the disobejdng and deceiving her parents — only they were 
so mad in their feud, that what could she ever hope for from 
their reason or their duty ? They drove her to the climax ol 
her disobedience and deceit, and that after she had consented to 
be Borneo’s. Why, madam,” Lady Bell paused, clasped her 
hands expressively, and exclaimed irrestrainably, “ I should 
have done the same.” 

“ What! swallowed that horrid drug, and taken the doubt- 
ful consequences — the only thing certain that she should 
overwhelm her father and mother and whole kindred in a 
horrid waste of grief ? Then, when she did wake up in the 
dreadful shadowy tomb, because the first glimmer of light 
proved to her that the dangerous stratagem had been in vain, 

and she had lost her lover My dear, many a woman 

has to lose her lover,” Miss Greathead broke off, and fanned 
herself, while a quiver passed over her features. “Think of 
this American war, and the French wars, and the Scotch 
rebellion, and all that they cost. But to count the world lost, 
and refuse to live any longer without the one man I It was 
selfish and cowardly, as well as blasphemous, for her to fall 
on his sword, and make an end of it.” 

Lady Bell shivered. 

“ There need not have been any use of violence,” she 
said, after a pause, speaking from the prompting of 
her heart — “unless, indeed, it was because the young 
Italian girl was too sorry for herself. A living death would 
soon have killed her ; and if it had not, death in life would 
have been the greater tribute of the two.” 


ROMEO AND JULIET ON THE STAGE. 


277 


‘^Lady Bell,” said Captain Fane in lier ear, taking her 
hand and holding it fast and tight, as they left the box and 
wended their slow way after Miss Greathead, whom a friend 
was conducting to a coffee-house for supper, “I have some- 
thing to say to you, and you know it, while you have not the 
heart to deny me the Liberty of saying it. I am sure of this 
much after to-night. Oh, the happiness of knowing that 
your heart is on my side ! What are the heaviest obstacles 
after that gracious encouragement? But I must speak 
where we shall not be interrupted. Will you be my love, 
and will you meet me on the Mall, where I shall be walking 
by nine o’clock to-morrow morning, long before there will be 
any company abroad?” 

Lady Bell hung her head and trembled, and would almost 
have drawn back, frightened at the result which she had 
helped to provoke. 

“You will not be true to yourself and to me if you refuse 
me such an interview,” he put it. “I shan’t detain you a 
moment against your will ; do you think I should, or wilfully 
expose you or your good name ? Ah, never ; you know me 
better than think that. But although you have no parents to 
control you, and are even independent of guardians, you are so 
youi^, my darling, and it is such a miserable match for you.” 

“Hush, hush,” Lady Bell stopped him. “You don’t 
know how unworthy I am — what a vain, pleasure-loving, 
headstrong creature.” 

“ You shall have the best, the purest pleasure that I 
can procure for you,” bragged Harry. “ But all your friends 
will oppose a marriage between us, especially at this time, 
when I may get orders any day to sail for America. Even 
my friends, Sir Peter and Lady Sundon, will be scandalized 
— as if their house had not proved a snare to me, and as if 
they were answerable for their pirate of a kinsman snatching 
at the treasure which he came across.” 


278 


LADY BELL. 


“I am my own mistress,” said Lady Bell, giving a wel- 
come specimen of the wilfulness of which she had spoken. 
“No one has any right to say anything to me against my 
choice — as if I would listen ! — unless my dear Mrs. Sundon. 
Oh, I hope she will not think, that we have been close and 
sly; I have writ and told her that I thought one gentleman 
very different from the rest whom I met in town, and that I 
imagined she would like him. Only 1 made a mistake ; for 
I fancied at first that he would be more to her taste than 
mine. But, sir, I do not grant that you have any title to 
hear what I write in my private correspondence with my 
friend.” She made a faint attempt at playfulness. 

“Don’t you?” questioned Harry, showing that, glum as 
he had sometimes been in Lady Bell’s company, his was not 
the faint heart which could not win a fair lady. “ What pre- 
sumption I have been guilty of ! I leaped to the conclusion 
rhat there was to be no more secrets between us, and that 
you would write to me myseK for my consolation in our 
parting.” 

At that word of parting. Lady Bell came fluttering down 
from her proud little perch, and nestled to him in an instant. 

“Harry,” she said, “I shall meet you to-morrow if you 
bid me. But take care what you bid me do, for I trust. you 
entirely.” 

“ God do so and more to me, if I fail you,” swore Harry 
Fane. 

“ And don’t mind any foolish pother people make. I shall 
not mind it much. Only I hope that they will not be very 
rude and disagreeable on your account. Here is the coffee- 
house ; and mind, we must behave ourselves, unless we would 
have our engagement talked of all over the town before it is 
fairly concluded.” 


CHAPTEE XXXVm. 


THE MEETING ON THE MALL, 

JDY nine o’clock next morning a young naval officer was 
pacing the Mall of St. James’s under the interlaced 
boughs of the still leafless trees He formed a conspicuous 
figure among the porters, tradesmen’s boys, shopwomen, and 
message girls — all who wore then to be seen on the old 
promenade, which had still its fashionable frequenters at 
stated hours later in the day. 

But conspicuous or unconspicuous, there was no one whose 
observation was likely to signify to the gentleman, or to the 
lady who, taking an early walk, attended by her maid, might 
encounter him, and consent to his attendance for the rest of 
the way. 

The weather, which had been boasting that spring was 
come a fortnight before, had reversed its sentence — now that 
March was not only coursing in the blood and in the sap of 
the trees, but recorded in the calendar — and insisted that the 
season was no other than midwinter. A raw, surly east wind 
was blowing ; a grey sky was overhead ; the turf of the park 
looked pinched ; the leaflets of the trees stood arrested — 
their green turned to sickly yellow. The little birds retained 
their songs in their breasts, and only chirped disconsolately 
in a croaking fashion down in their throats, as they hopped 
from bough to bough to keep themselves warm. 


280 


LADY BELL. 


Captain Fane, 'with, his cocked kat pulled down to his eye- 
brows, looked grave and almost grim and hard-favoured as 
he paced the Mall. 

Captain Fane’s patience was not tried on the occasion. 
He had not half crossed the park when a little figure guarded 
from the chill morning air and from prying eyes by a furred 
mantle and a capuchin, came towards him. 

The figure was followed by a faithful maid in her white 
cap and pattens, walking discreetly behind. 

The lady advanced, woman fashion, as if she did not see 
the gentleman, but had been enticed out by the fineness of 
the disagreeable morning, and by the company on the deserted 
Mall. She looked over her shoulder to speak to her maid. 
She tacked, as she picked her steps from side to side of the 
Mall, like one of the ships in Harry Fane’s squadron when the 
wind was chopping afresh every minute. The figure, with its 
halting, wavering, but unmistakable progress in his direc- 
tion, quickened the gentleman’s steps in accordance with 
his bounding pulses, and sent him straight as a launch to 
meet it. 

Captain Fane was deeply sensible of the boon granted to 
him ; but even as he held Lady Bell’s hand in his own, his 
face continued grave and contracted with trouble and pain. 
The first words which he said as he turned and walked by 
her side, giving, not offering his aim, were words of warning 
in breaking bad news. 

“It is well that you have been as good as your word, 
dearest, well for your own tender heart as for my comfort in 
remembrance, since our first meeting is like to be our last. 
Orders from the Admiralty were waiting my return last 
night. I did not know, but it was just possible that the 
Thunderhomb might be put in dock to lie high and dry for 
months. I had even entertained the thought — but that was 
before I saw you and lost my head with my heart — ah! 


THE MEETING ON THE MALL. 


281 


sweet Bell, I’ll go bail you have mucb to account for — of 
seeking to get an appointment to another ship, lest I should 
be kept hanging about long on shore. Long ! The time has 
passed like a summer day which is all but ended. The 
Thunderlomh is to hold itself in readiness to weigh anchor on 
or about the 15th, to sail with a detachment of troops for 
Boston.” 

Lady Bell had heard him without interruption till this. 
“Going away: — away from me, Harry?” she cried, struck 
heavily by the blow, “ to join the ranks of war, and dare the 
stormy seas while these words we have spoken are yet on our 
lips ! No, no, it cannot be.” 

“ My love, I would I could say no and comfort you. Guess, 
then, what it must be for me to leave you,” he appealed to 
her. 

“ Then, don’t leave me,” said Lady Bell desperately. 
“ Oh, Harry Fane, I have been so lonely all my life, an 
orphan, a loveless wife — could not help it; I could not 
love poor Mr. Trevor after he had forced me. a persecuted 
child, to marry him — ^till I found Sunny. You need not 
look disappointed. She has been the dearest, best of 
friends and sisters to me ; but I am frighted I have misled 
her. I know I would leave her for my lover, my true 
husband. Will you leave me after this alone again ? Cruel 
Harry ! Lady Sundon was right. You are a hard, stubborn 
man.” 

“Alas! dear, how can I help it? — ^I, who would give ’my 
best chance of promotion — weU-nigh my life, if — not the 
Admiralty, but the Powers above, would suffer me to remain 
with you only thi’ee months,” he protested passionately. “ It 
may not be. Lady Bell — I cannot even pray for it.” 

“And yet you only half approve of this American war,” 
she reminded him, pertinaciously. 

“That is true,” he owned; “and more than I are in the 


282 


LADY BELL. 


same, or a worse, predicament. Lord Effingham has followed 
the example of Yiscount Pitt, in requesting leave to retire 
from the service ; and Captain Wilson, an Irishman, who 
ohtainod his commission by raising a hundred and thirty 
men off his own estate, and who has served with the greatest 
credit for sixteen years, has also laid down his STVOrd.” 

“Then why cannot you do the same?” she implored 
him. 

“ Because I do not see it to he my duty,” he said firmly. 
“ I don’t approve of every tittle of the laws and their execu- 
tion. For instance, a miserable lad of fifteen was hanged 
t’other day for some petty theft — it may have been no more 
than the filching of a sixpence, for which they tell me another 
wretched fellow swung at Tyburn; but that is not to say 
that I am not to maintain the laws which are just and good 
in the main. This is no time to pick holes in the services, 
but to build them up with our bodies and blood, and let 
reformation follow in due time. For anything else — even to 
be with you, it would be rank selfishness.” 

“You are too strong and wise for me,” she complained a 
little bitterly, averting her head. 

“You would not have me sacrifice honour and duty,” he 
pressed her in his turn, ‘ ‘ what every true man is bound to 
maintain in the name of God and his fellows, whatever else 
he give up ? Eemember the line of the song you sang the 
last time I stood by the harpsichord in Cleveland Court : — 

' * I could not love thee, dear, so well, 

Loved I not honour more.’ 

Sailors, like soldiers, belong specially to their king and 
country. Would you wish your sailor to stain his blue 
jacket ? ” 

“No, no, I would have you my best of men,” yielded Lady 
Bell, with a great sob ; “ but I doubt my heart, is broke, for 
I cannot follow you into danger, and if — if ” 


THE MEETING ON THE MALL. 


283 

Bhe failed in framing the conclusion, that the man she 
loved, and who had just told her his love, standing there in 
liis flower of youth, health, and strength, might ere long fall 
on the deck, slippery with blood, never to rise again, or sink 
in the trough of an engulphing wave, and be washed far 
beyond the ken of friend or foe. 

Lady Bell broke into piteous tears. She had been, as she 
said, so lonely a young creature, constrained, in the measure, 
to be self-suflB.cing, till she had found a friend, and then a 
love. 

He had taught her in the shortest space to be prouder of 
his love than of all else belonging to her. She had been 
right willing to lay down for him her pride of birth and 
beauty and a belle’s worldly expectations. She had consented 
gladly to resign that belleship, to affront the great world, and, 
as an anti-climax after her triumphs, to make a poor love 
marriage. 

But it was all in vain. No such voluntary offering was 
required of her. Her new-found love was snatched from her. 
Her life was emptied of its fulness at the fullest, just when 
she had begun to know how rich and rapturous life might be. 
“Would it have been a relief to you,” asked Captain Fane 
slowly, “though I would never have consented to your facing 
hardship (’fore George, to think of my Lady Bell being ex- 
posed for me!) — ^if all this had occurred months earlier, and 
in the interval we had braved the cold displeasure, or the hot 
wrath, of friends, and were wed, man and wife, whom no man, 
nothing save death, could put asunder? Would it have made 
a difference if you could have gone out with me, as some of 
the civil authorities, Mr. Eden and others — ay, 'some of the 
officers too, have carried out their wives ? ” 

“ Oh, Harry, it would have been heaven compared to this I ” 
Lady Bell assured him fervently. 

“ What ! ” he cried, half with tender wonder, half covetous 


284 


LADY BELL. 


to have tlie fond assurance repeated, “you would cross the 
seas, and rough it among rough sailors on board ship, and 
you so young and dainty. You would dwell among strangers, 
many of them hostile-psome say with a good cause, but it is 
too late to do aught but fight its righteousness or unright- 
eousness now — and we sailors might be called on to help to 
take stores up the country, while we were dependent on 
the fidelity of our barbarous allies, the Indians. You were 
never in a foreign country. You never even tried living on 
board ship.” 

“Never, never,” corroborated Lady Bell, so heartily, that 
there was something like cheerfulness in her tone. “But I 
should be with you, and what would I mind besides ? Do 
you think I am a coward, sir, or a peevish woman, fit for 
nothing but to miss my comforts, and make a moan ? Don’t 
call the sailors rough, when you are a sailor.” 

“Then I am delivered from a very great temptation,” 
admitted Harry Fane honestly. 

“Don’t return thanks for it,” she forbade him quickly, 
“when it is my loss. Oh, Harry! I am yours — ^yours in 
our hearts ; but I would I were yours so that no man could 
contradict it, anyhow or anywhere,” sighed Lady Bell, cling- 
ing to hi m with a creeping quaiHng foretaste of all the evils 
which might be wrought by distance, time, the remonstrances 
of friends, the misrepresentations of enemies. 


OHAPTEB XXXIX. 


TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT? 

^AKE care, Lady BeU,” exclaimed Harry, in rising agita- 
tion, “lest I’m only delivered from one temptation to be 
plunged into another.” 

“Ah! temptations have no power for you,” proclaimed 
Lady Bell, with a mixture of pride and sorrow ; “you are as 
firm as a rock, and as unyielding when you think you are in 
the right.” 

“ Don’t be too sure,” said Captain Fane, and she saw that 
he could be nervous with all his firmness. “ I have let you say 
how you will want me, because it has been marrow to my 
bones and joy to my heart, Bell, when God knows I am 
anxious and sad enough. But at least you do not resign me 
to the importunities of any rival, unless it be to the image of 
Britannia herself,” he suggested, with an effort at a jest and 
a smile, “ fl.ourishing, as our general figure-head, and to the 
death which she may bear in her hand. Think what I must feel 
to leave you, exposed to the cunning wiles of all the beaux and 
bucks and great matches who hunt women as men hunt game. 
These men play with women, and have no remorse — for not 
believing in a God in heaven, they do not believe in a man or 
woman on earth. They seek to buy women, and sooner than 
be foiled in the base barter which they propose, and be forced 
to confess their titles, rent-rolls, money-bags, even theii’ 


286 


LADY BELL. 


pretty persons, disparaged, they will try to get the better 
of women by cruel arts. Such men betray women infer- 
nally.” 

He had worked himself up till he was pouring forth 
a torrent of rage, hatred, and apprehension. Cold as the 
morning was, he had to wipe his forehead. 

Why, Harry!” remonstrated Lady Bell, startled, but not 
altogether offended by his jealous fury, not unwilling to be 
roused from the dej ectioii into which she was sinking, and to 
be diverted for a moment from the gloomy prospect before 
her. 

There was no question of the gloom near at hand, and to 
last for many a day. Come what liked in the future, Harry 
Fane was going, would go to join his ship in the first place, 
and the war in the second. He might be subjected to work, 
weariness, and privation, but he had action and change for his 
portion. As for her, she must abide in her place forlorn, 
with the brightness passed from the sky, and the zest gone out 
of the feast. The “Lubin” of the song was indeed, on the 
eve of departure, of long uncertain tarrying, perhaps till his 
love’s bloom was faded, her heart withered and dry. Lady 
BeU had asked once in very idleness and restlessness, that 
movement, passion, even, in its pangs, might ruffle the still 
waters of her heart. They were ruffled with a vengeance, 
lashed into a piteous storm, to heave and swell for many a 
day, ere they settled down agmn in peace. 

Knowing what was hanging over her. Lady Bell was fain 
to forget the knowledge for a moment, in the rousing 
consideration that Captain Fane, in spite of her frank con- 
fession, was half beside himself with jealousy. 

She did not altogether disapprove of this state of matters, 
tor was it not evidence of how well the self-controlled sailor 
loved her? 

She was a little frightened at the strength of his passion, 


TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT ? 287 

nevertheless. Extravagantly as she herself had loved him, 
she did not know him fully and closely, after all. One of the 
charms of her love was its mystery. 

But Lady Bell thought Harry Fane too severe in his stric- 
tures, and certainly needing to he pulled up and taken to 
task. Aching as her heart was, she tried to make believe 
for a brief space that the ache was not there, and to do her 
part in enlightening her lover. 

She began to pout with her white face and her tearful eyes. 

“ Would I forget you in your absence, Harry ? Could you 
ever believe that ? What effect would all the wicked strata- 
gems of the finest gentlemen have on me?” 

•‘How can I tell?” he answered gloomily. “I found a 
whole hornet’s nest buzzing round you when I met you first, 
and again at th'e masquerade, and you did not seem able to 
put them down.” 

“Why should I put them down? They are entitled to 
live as well as the rest of us, even though a busy fellow of a 
bee looks down upon them as drones or butterflies ; indeed 
they are rather that than hornets. They have never done 
me harm, and they have squired and amused me many a day; 
you ought to be more generous to them, sir, and to learn to 
keep a civil tongue in your head.” 

“We have no time for quarrelling,” cried Harry, “you 
may teach me better manners one day, if we are spared and 
restored to each other, and you are still willing to undertake 
the office. But I could not profit by the best of lessons, and 
I submit that it would be taking me altogether at a disad- 
vantage to begin when I am just about to bid you farewell.” 

“ Not yet ! not yet !” besought Lady Bell, dislodged from 
her poor little temporary cranny of arch resistance and co- 
quettish teasing, and stretched anew, like another Andro- 
meda, on a sheer precipice, over a sea of misery, until she 
fell back into her lamentation. “If we had but understood 


288 


LADY BELL. 


eacli otlier faster, and been married witbin these few weeks 
— sailors and soldiers must woo and wed in haste — before 
these terrible sailing orders arrived ! Then I could have 
sailed with you ; I should not have been frighted, though we 
had encountered the enemy. I could have kept quiet below, 
with you on deck to run to when the guns ceased firing. I 
might have proved how little I cared for any other man by 
following you all over the world.” 

‘^You can prove it, dear,” declared Harry Fane, hoarse 
with eagerness, taking her at her word, giving the reins to his 
passion, and smothering and trampling down every doubt and 
scruple. ‘‘Let us be married before I go, and although I 
cannot take you with me, I may send for you to my station. 
Some one of my old messmates and friends will be glad to do 
as he would be done by, and bring you out to me in his 
ship.” 

Lady Bell was astounded ; she had been utterly unpre- 
pared for this catching up of her speech, heartfelt though 
it was. 

Harry Fane rushed on, overwhelming her with his special 
pleading. 

‘ ‘ That and that alone would reassure my mind, which is 
on the rack for you, exposed on a pinnacle as you are. 
Don’t be vexed with me when I say it, but you are a beauti- 
ful woman of rank, very young, greatly admired, as you well 
may be, moving in gay worldly circles, which unsettle even a 
man’s head, and throw dust in his eyes. You have not a 
near relation whose right it would be to control and guide 
you, only such thoughtless, irresponsible guardians as even 
my good cousin ! Oh ! my love, how shall I leave you thus ? 
for G-od knows how long,” he groaned in anguish, “ these 
six — twelve years. This horrid war has long been hanging 
over us. Our American brethren are brave and resolute as 
we are ; the strife may last while mother country and colony 


TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT? 


289 


hold out. How can I trust your constancy exposed to such 
a test, assailed as it will be when I am gone, and you a 
young woman, and therefore weak, without blame or shame 
to you?” 

“ I understand,” acknowledged Lady Bell piteously. “I 
am not angry with you for distrusting me — ^how can I be, 
when I remember how weak I was once before ? how wrong 
as well as weak, I know by my love for you. I was unfair 
to myself and to another. Ho I not shrink from looking you 
and every one in the face when I think of mj^ marriage ? Do 
I not blush for the name I bear, because of the reason for 
bearing it ?•— that I let myself be sold as a chattel or a slave, 
rather than die free — and I was not a loyal slave, Harry, 
never think it, I revolted and fled, like many another 
slave.” 

He was hardly listening to her, he was so dead set on 
over-persuading her and himself that he might make her his, 
a^d that by doing so, he would save her. 

‘‘ Then do not risk danger again, you are not so much older 
— only a tender girl of eighteen — ^widow though you are. I 
may not even be able to reach you with the poor stay of 
letters when all your friends will be against me. I cannot 
wonder and complain, but I must think of myself and my 
love, and of you and yours, for you love me, and me only. 
Lady Bell, your lips have sworn it now, over and over.” 

“Ay, and I swear it again,” averred Lady Bell, with fond 
pride. 

“ No other man will ever be to you what I can be. I will 
say more, cross-grained sinner as I am, I honestly believe 
that I shall raise you. Bell, by your love, as you will raise 
me by mine. Are not true lovers made for helpmeets as well 
as mates ? And, although I have no cause for boasting, less 
at this moment perhaps than at any other, still, do you not 
love me, darling, because you think me honest, though plain, 
13 u 


290 


LADY BELL. 


earnest if harsh, a little wiser in my blundering, a little more 
bent on truth and righteousness in my faultiness, than the 
ruck of those heartless triflers and blasphemous renouncers 
of all obligations around you?” 

‘^Have I not called you the best of men ?” boasted Lady 
Bell, with an immensity of faith which might have staggered 
him and opened his eyes. But he only shut them harder, 
while he modestly declined the innocent hyperbole. 

‘‘ Oh, no, a prodigiously erring fellow, and nearly mad at 
this moment, I suspect. But we should walk through life 
hand in hand, love, and ask to rise to the best that nature 
and grace could make us. Lor that end we should seek to 
be reverent and dutiful, and to turn our backs on vanities, 
follies, and worse. It is not wrong to make this end so sure, 
that if we live it cannot be baulked, and that no one can ever 
more, come between us to beguile us of our faith in God and 
each other.” 

“If I could only claim you as my wife,” he argued uji- 
weariedly, “I should have no further fear to leave you thus 
solemnly bound to me — thus able by uttering one word to 
dismiss all suitors, or to consign them to the tender mercies 
of a man whom you could then call from the ends of the earth 
— too happy to come, as I came to you at the masquerade — 
to give you protection. My name alone, when you choose to 
take it, and replace by it the name which you tell me, hang- 
ing your head (I cannot bear to have my love hang her 
head), it is no pleasure or pride for you to wear, would 
protect you.” 

“ Ah ! Harry, shall I ever wear your dear name ?” 

“ If you will. Lady Bell ; and I venture to afhrm that it will 
shelter you as the name of the husband of your own free choice. 
In the mean time I shall be doing my best to make my name 
honourable for you. But ah. Bell, grant me my reward now, 
during the few short hours which we are yet to spend 


TO TIE OR NOT TO TIE THE KNOT? 29 1 

together — while it is in your power to grant it, since it is 
doubtful whether I shall ever return to claim it.” 

“ Come hack quick, Harry, and you may blame me as you 
will, I shall be too happy to he blamed by you, and to do 
whatever you desire,” promised Lady Bell. 

“Heaven forgive my conceit, it was my very wonder and 
delight, which caused me to find fault or fret at every small 
mote in my sun. But I shall not contradict or plague you 
more, very likely you will soon have seen the last of a 
lumpish, captious fello^, whose greatest merit that I can see 
is, that he no sooner knew you than he cast his quips and 
cranks, as a misanthropic sailor, to the winds, and loved you 
with his whole heart and soul.” 

“ Oh, heavens ! seen the last, contradict — ^plague ! Harry, 
while you profess to love me, how can you speak so un- 
kind?’^ 


CHAPTER XL. 


ISLINGTON CHURCH EARLY ONE MARCH MORNING. 

TTABRY PANE was convinced of all tliat lie had said — to 
the extremity of the situation which appeared to justify 
a violent alternative as the only refuge froni their trouble. 
Naturally he succeeded in persuading Lady Bell, while he 
was not even guilty of deliberately playing upon her feelings. 
He was tortured with having the cup snatched from his lips — 
with doubt and dread, and he groaned out his torture audibly, 
until Lady Bell was brought to enter but a faltering futile 
objection to his desperate project. 

“How can we get married so soon, nobody knowing, your 
cousin away, and not a preparation made?” 

Nothing more easy, as the records of the generation showed, 
and as Lady Bell’s own recollection might have told her. 

Even when a public marriage would be attended with 
dif&culties, a private marriage could be resorted to, and had 
been resorted to, more than once already by officers hastily 
bound for America. These private marriages were, according 
to convenience, announced shortly after the event, or allowed 
gradually to filter out in suspicious rumours, till the secret 
was no secret, by the time it was finally disclosed. 

Certainly Lady Bab Yelverton, the only child of the Earl 
of Suffolk, whose runaway match had been much talked of 
this season, had brought private marriages somewhat into 
disgrace. 


ISLINGTON CHURCH. 


293 


But then Lady Bab, by the way a mere chit of a girl, two 
years younger than Lady Bell, had defied parental authority 
in the most daring and glaring manner ; Lady Bab had gone off 
from her father and mother’s house with Lieutenant Gould, just 
returned from being wounded in America, to be worse wounded 
by Cupid or Plutus at home. Lord Suffolk had threatened his 
daughter with his curse, and the cutting her off with a shilling. 

Lady Bab’s gross filial undutifulness was regarded as even 
more reprehensible than the Duchess of Leinster’s disregard 
for maternal obligations. The duchess, who was the widowed 
mother of seventeen children, as well as “ the proudest, most 
expensive woman in town,” had thought fit to marry her 
eldest son’s tutor. 

But Lady Bell had no father to curse her, and cut her off 
with a shilling, and in place of seventeen chicks did not 
possess one whose interest could be affected by the acquisition 
of a stepfather. If Lady Bell chose to be very imprudent, 
she was still at liberty to please herself. There was only her 
friend, Mrs. Sundon, whom Lady Bell was bound to consult, 
and, fortunately or unfortunately, Mrs. Sundon was too far 
away in the emergency to be consulted in time. 

Captain Fane was his own master, save when he was with 
his squadron. He had fewer surviving relatives than Lady 
Bell owned. 

Why then should there be any privacy thought of in the 
matter ? 

Because, although there were no near relations, there w6re 
many friends, if there was no fortune on either side to be 
thrown away, there were sufficient prospects to be sacrificed, 
and penalties to be incurred. Lady BeU had been so much 
the rage, been believed to have the refusing of such excellent 
offers, that a host of influential people, if they knew the 
reckless step which she proposed to take, would rush in — all 
the faster, that it was no particular business of theirs — to try 


294 


LADY BELL. 


if they could not prevent the shocking disaster of an attractive 
young woman of rank committing an unequal love mar- 
riage. 

Even the Sundons, who had looked on and promoted the 
intimacy between the pair, would, as Captain Fane foresaw, 
take blame to themselves when it was too late to oppose the 
grand conclusion of the intimacy. 

Lady Bell for herself, and Captain Fane for her, had a 
natural dislike to the exclamations, the expostulations, and 
the nine days’ wonder which they must provoke. 

Lady Bell would have to sustain the scorn, to support 
much that was painful in her new position, all alone, as if she 
were still a widow, should she marry Captain Fane publicly, 
and should he join his ship immediately and sail on a long 
voyage with sea-fights in the distance. 

On the other hand. Lady Bell and Captain Fane might 
marry as many of their compeers married, secretly, keep their 
own counsel, and none be any the wiser, till the gentleman 
returned to make known the marriage and claim his wife. 

No doubt that was the line of argument followed and found 
satisfactory long ago by men and women, honourable other- 
wise, who allowed themselves, to become involved in the 
compromises, the concealments, the double dealings, and the 
acted lies of private marriages, for which the principals were 
not condemned by their contemporaries. 

In justice alike to our progenitors and to ourselves, we 
crave leave to remember, that just as our grandfathers and 
grandmothers managed to combine in their portly and stately 
persons, along with a foreground of magnificence and ele- 
gance, a background of slipshodness -and sluttishness, so, 
even where their virtues were admirable, still their manly 
morals were laxer, and their womanly manners less delicate, 
than the morals and manners of the present generation. 

There was one obstacle to a private marriage in Lady Bell’s 


ISLINGTON CHURCH. 


295 


case, which nearly compelled the couple to brave public 
clamour and indignation. Lady Bell was a minor. Captain 
Fane, in despair at this difficulty, hurried like a madman, 
braving all imputations, to the most notorious gaming-houses 
in town where Squire Godwin’s whereabouts might be dis- 
covered. 

The gallant Captain proposed, failing every other resource, 
to make a forlorn appeal to Lady Bell’s nearest relations. 

The gentleman was luckier than he deserved, he stumbled 
on the very man he sought, who was in London unknown to 
Lady Bell, and unencountered by her. 

Captain Fane and Squire Godwin had an interview, during 
which the former succeeded in coming to an arrangement 
with the latter, but by what representation and inducement, 
by what descent to lower depths on the part of the ruined 
gentleman, and by what ill-bestowal of a portion of Harry 
Fane’s last prize-money, never transpired. The transaction 
was not likely to be reported by Mr. Godwin, neither was it 
one on which Harry Fane would care to look back. 

Captain Fane, however, took the precaution of introducing 
Squire Godwin for a few moments to the Sundons’ house in 
Cleveland Court. 

Lady Bell met her uncle for the first time since her mar- 
riage to Squire Trevor. She could not help regarding Squire 
Godwin as a bird of evil-omen. His appearance on the scene, 
like a malignant spectre at the critical juncture, was a shock 
to Lady Bell, and smote her, while it lasted, with blank con- 
fusion and consternation. 

But Mr. Godwin’s stay was short, since the master of 
the house was kept in the dark as to the origin of a visit 
which he did not relish, and for bringing about which he did 
not thank Captain Fane. 

Sir Peter was ready to shake himself up and put a stop to 
the intrusion, while he prevented any attempt which it might 


LADY BELL. 


2gb 

imply of the resumption of authority by Squire Godwin 
over his niece, Lady Bell Trevor, Sir Peter’s honoured 
guest. 

Mr. Godwin did not wait to be dismissed, he took his leave, 
giving Lady Bell, in her agitation, a dim impression that 
while his air was as distinguished as ever, in the studied 
carelessness — of which the study was so perfect, that it became 
invisible— and his dress as irreproachable, every line in his 
handsome person was drawn more deeply and sharply. Crows’ 
toes and furrows had multiplied incalculably, till the wrinkles 
of premature old age were shrivelling and wizening his face. 
The once noble field was all covered over with cramped, con- 
tracted, ugly hand- writing. 

Lady Bell could not so much as rally breath and courage 
to inquire for her Aunt Die. She was so simple and ignorant, 
that she did not even guess what had brought her lover into 
strange contact and alliance with Squire Godwin, or how the 
latter came by the knowledge, the merest whisper of which 
was sufficient to cause her to leap from her chair, for Mr. 
Godwin contrived in his brief greetings to say one or two 
pertinent words aside to her. 

The Squire addressed Lady Bell Trevor with a little more 
consideration than he had been wont to bestow on Lady Bell 
Etheredge, but there remained the echo of the old contempt 
in the tone of his speech. 

“ So you think to contract a second marriage, madam ; 
well, matrimony is honourable, though I have not tried it on 
my own account. I am sorry that I cannot say much for the 
wisdom of the step in this instance, but I do not presume to 
advise, far less to interfere. It says much for the happiness 
of the last knot (eh ! my Lady Bell ?) that you are so keen 
to tie another.” 

The one difficulty overcome, the remainder of the scheme 
was even exceptionally practicable, and circumstances like 


ISLINGTON CHURCH. 


297 

cards played themselves, as it were, in Captain Pane’s aiid 
Lady Bell’s hand. 

A letter arrived from Lady Sundon to inform Sir Peter in 
particular and “ all friends who were interested,” that her 
boy was in a fair way of recovery, but still called for not less 
than a month’s nursing from her and Lyddy. 

In the delay. Sir Peter, who was miserable, left in town 
with only Nancy of all his family, and who had got all that 
he could expect from the opinion of the medical men, resolved 
to break up his establishment in London for the season, return 
to Sundon Grreen, and await his wife there. 

Thus the best pretext was afforded gratis to Lady Bell for 
sincerely assuring Sir Peter, with grateful mention of his hos- 
pitality, that he need not have any hesitation on her account. 
Her visit had already extended beyond its j)roposed limits. 
Mrs. Sundon was anxious for Lady Bell’s return. Lady Bell 
herseK was beginning to long to be out of the racket which 
had made a fine change, but which she did not affect for a 
continuance, and to be at home again and settled down quietly 
at Summerhill. 

But first Lady BeU had to spend a few days at the village 
of Islington, with her old nurse at Lady Lucie Penruddock’s. 

The nurse’s accommodation was so scanty, that Lady Bell 
could not take her maid. Lady Bell would come back to 
Cleveland Court to fetch the servant, when Sir Peter 
kindly arranged to send his old coachman to be their escort 
to Lumley, before the Sundons themselves went into the 
country. 

Nothing could be more proper and obliging. In the mean 
time, Captain Pane had taken leave of his friends in town, 
and started for Portsmouth, but he journeyed by a round- 
about road, and halted on the way. 

Lady Bell did think that' fate had been against her, when 
she was constrained to accomplish a second marriage, shorn 
13 * 


LADY BELL. 


298 

like the first of all state and splendour. But there was no 
help for it. 

In the. parish church of Islington, attended by her nurse, 
and given away by a friend of the* nurse’s, with the clerk and 
the pew-opener to serve as additional witnesses, early one 
stormy March morning, Lady Bell was lawfully married to 
Harry Fano. 


CHAPTEB XLl. 


BACK AT SUMMERHILL. 

TT was like a dream to Lady Bell as she travelled back to 

Summerhill. 

There passed in review before her, like the shifting scenes 
of a dream, her London season and its triumphs, the love 
which had taken her by storm in the middle of the world’s 
vanities, the declaration of love after the play, the announce- 
ment on the Mall of the arrival of Harry Fane’s sailing orders, 
the visit to Islington, the hasty private marriage, and at last 
the wrench with which the bridegroom had torn himself from 
his bride. 

Could it all have happened to Lady Bell, and was she 
really a new creature, belonging to another, and bearing 
another name — ^his precious name, if the truth were known ? 

Or had she only awakened from a dream ? The dream 
might have passed with the bleakness and storms, which 
were over and gone, while in their place had come the March 
of daffodils and bluebells ready to welcome her back to 
Summerhill. 

Ah ! no. Lady Bell was a new creature. Her heart was 
at the sea. These land charms had become stale, flat, and 
unprofltable to her, since he was not there to share them. 
She would give them all willingly for a taste of the breeze, 
salt on her lips. Her eyes filled with tears, “idle tears,” at 


300 


LADY BELL. 


the sight of a flock of curlews hovering over a waste and 
recalling to her sea-gulls skimming the waves. Her whole 
being seemed dissolving in yearning and longing for her 
lover and husband. Existence would not be worth having 
till ho was restored to her. 

But, in the flrst place, how was Lady Bell to present her- 
self to her dear Mrs. Sundon ? — how account for the transfor- 
mation in her, to those penetrating eyes, and that wise, 
experienced heart, unless by conflding the truth to Mrs. 
Sundon ? And, in that case, how was she to obtain forgive- 
ness for the march which she had stolen on her friend ? 

Captain Fane had left Lady Belf free to take what friends 
she chose into the secret. It was dn her account, rather than 
on his, that a secret had been made. 

Lady Bell had no thought but of telling the story to 

Sunny ” some time — ^long before Captain Fane’s return. 

But there was no question that the telling would call for 
an effort on Lady Bell’s part, tell when she might. There 
would be more than a breach of confidence to receivye forgive- 
ness-^more, even, than the assertion of Lady Bell’s inde- 
pendence — there would be her subjugation to the powerful 
influence of another, which had superseded Mrs. Sundon’ s 
influence. 

The deed was done, yet Lady Bell felt more unequal than 
ever to the sensation that she would create ; the remonstrances, 
useless though they must be, which she would raise, the 
reflections that might be cast on another, the offence that 
might be taken by a friend to whom she had not ceased to 
be warmly attached. In fact, instead of loving her neigh- 
bour less, because of the one great central human love, she 
seemed to grow specially tender to the wrongs and smarts of 
every human creature, all for one mortal man’s dear sake. 

Withal, the bashfulness of the acknowledged bride was 
quadrupled in the unacknowledged bride. True, Lady Bell 


BACK AT SUMMERHILT. 


301 


had been married before, but that marriage had been alto- 
gether different — such a miserable travesty and poor mockery, 
that Lady Bell actually cried over the remembrance of her 
old self, and the dead Squire, for what they had defrauded 
each other of, and been defrauded of, many a time, during 
the first weeks of her marriage to Harry Fane. 

It felt so strange to see Summerhill again. 

There was the dainty, slightly fantastic women’s house and 
grounds exactly as she had left them, but surely with a 
failure in their qualities which she had not distinguished 
before. 

The place presented the same want of shade and substance 
which Queen Elizabeth had specially requested might be 
made in her picture. And the traits of life at Summerhill 
had corresponded with Queen Elizabeth’s idea that she and 
her maids should eat in private of the lightest and most 
refined viands, while the ladies left all that was solid and 
strong to the grosser appetites and needs of the gentlemen. 

Everything at Summerhill was fresh and feminine to a 
degree ; but there was a suspicion of flimsiness and make- 
believe in the very delicacy and over abundance of knick- 
knacks, where two young women had kept house together, 
and sworn unalterable first friendship, presuming to turn the 
course of nature, like these sister figures away among the 
Welsh mountains. 

To recognise Summerhill the same as she had left it, and 
yet to look on it with different eyes, knowing all the time 
that the difference lay in her own eyes, was a singular half- 
remorseful experience to Lady Bell. She was almost glad 
that Mrs. Sundon did not hear the carriage-wheels and run 
out to meet her. There was only Caro in her nurse’s arms 
at the door. It was a positive relief to see that Caro, quite 
in the course of nature, had grown by the addition of a few 
more months to her short lease of life, until there was some 


302 


LADY BELL. 


risk of her not knowing Caro, in addition to the apprehended 
risk of Caro’s not knowing Lady Bell. There was comfort in 
finding that anybody, even Caro, had undergone a change, 
because of the tremendous change in Lady Bell, of which 
she was tremblingly conscious. She should be thankful 
when the meeting with her friend was over. 

Lady Bell hurried, stumbling in her habit, into the bright 
little parlour — blindingly bright, and at the same time empty 
it looked, though it had the fine presence of Mrs. Sundon 
advancing to its threshold. 

There were two little cries of “Bell,” “Sunny,” which 
had a rush of old familiar affection in their tones that meant 
kisses — perfectly hearty and sincere in their fondness, and a 
little laughter, with twinkled-away tears. 

These tears seemed natural enough when Lady Bell was 
weary after an exciting journey, and Mrs. Sundon might be 
wearier still with waiting, and with staying all alone, having 
had no cheerful young friend at hand to dissipate grievous 
memories. 

It seemed to Lady Bell as if a cloud of anticipated awk- 
wardness and indefinable constraint and distress had burst 
and vanished, as such clouds will sometimes vanish at the 
moment of contact. She had found again her indulgent, 
magnanimous Mrs. Sundon, on whose favour and generosity 
Lady BeU could throw herself confidently — only she would 
spare both her friend and herself in the first hours of their 
meeting. 

When Lady Bell had composed herself to scrutinize and 
draw conclusions, it struck her with quick pain that Sunny 
was looking ill. 

Mrs. Sundon wore an exceedingly simple muslin dress, 
with the tight sleeves ending in frills at the wrist, and falling 
over the hands, the neckerchief being surmounted with the 
same wide plaited frills, out of which rose the fair pillar of 


BACK AT SUMMERHILL. 


303 


the throat, like the neck of a white heifer out of a gar- 
land. 

But Lady Bell had never seen the grand womanly propor- 
tions brought nearer to the spareness of attenuation, while 
the face was almost wan in its colourlessness. 

Clearly Mrs. Sundon had not been flourishing on keeping 
house alone; she had been wont to treat ‘‘nerves” and 
“vapours ” — regarded as bodily complaints, with lofty derision 
and condemnation ; yet her own nerves were unstrung, for she 
continued, though she did not allow it in words, to he agitated 
by Lady Bell’s arrival. There was a stir and quiver of Mrs. 
Sundon's features as of a rock which had been disturbed and 
shaken, and could not at once regain its entire balance and 
firm quietude. 

Lady Bell could not account for the involuntary disturb- 
ance and the striving in vain to overcome it, in her friend’s 
expressive face, and in her cold passive hand, which shook 
sensibly in Lady Bell’s feverish clasp, unless it were that 
Mrs. Sundon’s health had become impaired. 

If that were so, there must be laid to Lady Bell’s charge, 
among other acts of wilfulness and indiscretion, an ungra- 
cious oversight — the friend who had been so good to Lady 
Bell had pined in her absence, and had been left to pine. 

Or was it simply the disturbance in Lady Bell’s own 
flushed face, the thrilling of her own pulses, which her 
morbid fancy and guilty conscience transferred to her poor 
abused friend ? ” 

No ; here was an absent-minded, distrait woman, who had 
to assume an interest which she did not feel, in narratives 
that ought to have been, from her old familiarity with the 
scene, and her sisterly regard for the heroine, stimulating 
and engrossing in their effect upon the listener. 

Lady Bell was conscious of this while she sat chattering 
incessantly of all her different adventures, at the auctions and 


304 


LADY BELL. 


tlie routs, and was not once pulled up and brought to book 
by such searching cross-examination as the judge, jury, and 
counsel for the prosecution combined in the old Sunny, would 
have known well how to conduct. 

Even when Lady Bell forced her tripping tongue to speak 
Captain Fane’s name, while her eyes fell convicted, until 
their lashes rested on her cheeks dyed with burning blushes, 
she might have spared herself the trepidation and terror of 
instant discovery. Sunny’s mind was wool-gathering, and 
she did not recall her scattered faculties to make a single 
observation. , 

Lady BeU would have begun to have a revulsion of feeling, 
and, from being chilled, would have been mortified had she 
not been alarmed. 

As the day wore on, however. Lady Bell talked and talked 
her friend out of her stupor, and procured a measure of 
response in home news. These were but vapid concerns now 
to Lady Bell, but she was not going to betray her conviction 
of their vapidness. 

Caro had cut ever so many teeth. The stubble chickens 
were ready for killing. The Spanish j asmine had survived the 
winter. The mayor and tho good people of Lumley and 
Nutfield were all well, and, — oh yes, Master Charles had got 
his colours, and was going up to town to practise drill with 
the awkwai’d squad in the reserve of his regiment, before he 
joined the main body somewhere in the colonies — Mrs. Sun- 
don had forgotten exactly where. No, she could not say that 
she was vastly sorry for Miss Kingscote, as the young fellow 
was fulfilling his calling, and going where duty and the pro- 
spect of promotion, whether it were by life or death, called him. 

The last words, in answer to Lady Bell’s sympathetic in- 
quiry, were spoken so shortly as to remind Lady Bell that 
there was a worse end than that of death in Mrs. Sundon’s 
experience. 


CHAPTEE XLn. 


SECRETS AT SUMMERHILL. 

last the day came to an end. 

Caro, with every other likely interruption, was disposed 
of. Evening, with its atmosphere of peace and trust in such 
a home, descended on the jarring of cross purposes and the 
tenacity of individual cares. 

The two young women, sitting at each side of their hearth, 
where the crackling leaping wood fire was acceptable, ap- 
peared to be under a strong necessity of growing confi- 
dential. 

Lady Bell would open the ball. Before putting in a peti- 
tion for those at sea in her prayers for the night she would 
make her confession. After a conscious pause she said sud- 
denly — 

‘‘ Sunny, I know you do not approve of secrets.” 

Mrs. Sundon started. 

“When did I say there must be no secrets?” she asked 
sharply. “I should think there have been plenty of secrets 
where you and I were concerned, with regard to which the 
one has not interfered with the other.” 

Lady Bell was taken aback by the tone ; but she was full 
of her own intended recital, which was so happy in its 
essence. 

“Yes,” she answered softly; “but these were old secrets 

X 


3o6 


LADY BELL. 


before we knew each other, or before we were friends. Later, 
Sunny, you said there should be no secrets.” 

“I must have been an idiot to say so! ” exclaimed Mrs. 
Sundon, stiU speaking abruptly, and with asperity. Who 
can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth ? In place 
of believing that there cannot be freedom of intercourse 
where secrets are suffered to exist, I believe that there can- 
not be real freedom where there must not be secrets. I say 
this, Lady Bell,” proceeded Mrs. Sundon more calmly, ‘‘that 
you may not be misled into telling me your secrets under the 
delusive impression that I shall return the compliment by 
telling you mine.” 

“ I am not a child, to think of giving and taking secrets in 
' that fashion,” protested Lady Bell, feeling herself repulsed, 
and with her affection and dignity alike wounded. “I can 
keep my secrets — sure I would not force them on anybody,” 
she said, with her heart swelling under conflicting emotions. 

Lady Bell had a great longing to disburden herseK to her 
friend, and be, as she fully believed, not blamed only, but 
made much of, cried over, wished joy over (as only an old 
servant had wished Lady Bell joy). 

But she had also an importunate sense that the secret 
wliich Mrs. Sundon despised was not Lady Bell’s alone, but 
his, who was worthy of all respect, because if their hastily 
contracted marriage was a folly which he had committed, it 
was the first folly in him that she had heard of, and it had 
been committed for love of her. 

She remembered that she had never made the faintest 
appeal to his sympathy in vain. 

“At least, sleep on your secrets. Bell, dear. That will be 
the wisest plan,” said Mrs. Sundon, yawning. “I have been 
keeping early hours since you went, and I am certain that 
you have need of rest.” 

Mrs. Sundon lit the bed-chamber candle with her own 


SECRETS AT SUMMERHILL. 


397 

liand, and offered it and a kiss to Lady Bell, both of which 
she took coldly. * 

If Lady Bell was not a child to barter secrets, neither was 
she a child to be coaxed out of just surprise and indignation, 
and sent to bed as the fitting finale. 

Mrs. Sundon’s behaviour might arise from overmuch caution 
and scrupulous integrity ; but it could hardly spring from an 
excess of friendship. Evidently she did not wish to receive 
the information which Lady Bell was so willing to bestow, 
either because she was doubtful of its nature, and might not 
know how to deal with it, or because she was not disposed to 
reciprocate it. 

Eor the first time in the course of their friendship Lady 
Bell had reason to call Mrs. Sundon a little cold-hearted and 
hard. Accordingly, Lady Bell retreated to her room, holding 
up her head, and stepping out in dudgeon — the height of 
which certainly helped to qualify her disappointment, then 
went to bed and fell fast asleep, to dream brightly of Harry 
Fane. 

Lady Bell awoke in the middle of the night and the dark- 
ness, to a half-sleepy perception of people moving about in the 
house, of doors opened and shut, of whispers in which a man’s 
voice, though subdued, was still distinctly audible and con- 
spicuous in a household of women (for the Summerhill man- 
servant slept in a loft outside). It was this voice which had 
mingled with and helped to shape Lady Bell’s dreams. As 
Lady Bell became more widely awake she began to marvel 
and grow alarmed. 

Why was not all the house at rest at the dead of night ? 
Who was this man that was speaking to somebody in the 
room below, shuffling along the passage, and tamj)ering with 
the bolts of the front door ? 

These were the days of daring robberies and brutal 
burglaries — on the highways, in shops, in private houses, 


LADY BELL. 


308 

especially in suburban bouses, slightly guarded like Summer- 
hill. 

The absence of hea\y plunder did not avail. A servant 
girl, answering a knock at a door on a chain, had been 
dragged half way through the opening that her pocket might 
be cut away. A tradesman had been knocked down and left 
insensible, that the silver buckles might be taken from his 
shoes. 

No dread of punishment deterred burglars from their prey. 
Every justice-court and assize, every cross-road . and square 
before the county-town gaols abounded with the grisly fruit 
of such punishment, to no purpose so far as the putting down 
of crime was concerned. Some other means must be found 
before safety and peace took the place of insecurity and 
violence: 

The news-prints of the next week might contain the account 
of the breaking into of ‘‘ Summerhill, by Lumley,” the resi- 
dence of two ladies of distinction, a child, and their female 
servants, with whom the mistresses were rash enough to 
lodge alone. 

The gang of lawless wretches who would commit such a 
crime, might not have contented themselves with ransacking 
the house and making themselves masters of whatever money 
and articles of value it contained, which they could carry away, 
but in order to render their escape more secure, and to delay 
pursuit, might have murdered in their beds the poor women 
whom the ‘‘monsters ” could not gag into helplessness. 

The news-prints would contain the particulars, which 
would be studied by many readers with much the same 
attraction of horror which belongs in quieter times to the 
sensational romance, deepened in this case by the impres- 
sive knowledge that not only the story was true, but that it 
might be the personal experience of any one of the readers 
before his or her life were ended. There might be a little 


SECRETS AT SUMMERHILL. 


309 


special luxury of public indignation and pity, which in 
modern speech would be branded as snobbish, connected 
with the facts. These two murdered gentlewomen would not 
only be young, of great personal attractions, estimable in 
their way, with a peculiar interest attached to them from 
having retired from the great world of which they had been 
the ornaments to lead lives of simplicity, self-improvement, 
beneficence, and the enjoyment of each other’s congenial 
society, but in addition to every other cause of canonisation, the 
victims would be women of high quality, one of them bearing 
an ancient and honourable title. 

Here and there a reader would recognise the names as those 
of familiar friends, and be startled and shocked for half a day 
or half an hour. 

One reader many months thence might be struck to the 
heart, more effectually than by shot or shell. 

But nobody, not even Captain Fane, would regard the 
revolting calamity as very wonderful or unprecedented in its 
occurrence. 

These reflections, which have taken some time to write, 
flashed in a second across Lady Bell’s mind, and curdled her 
warm blood. She lay trembling and listening for a few 
seconds longer, and then she sprang from her bed with an 
instinctive determination that she would not lie still and be 
murdered there ; she would do something to save her life, for 
herself and her dear husband, far away, and unaware of her 
danger. 

It might not be too late to rouse the house and scare the 
villains. Lady Bell felt about for her mantle, ^thrust her feet 
into slippers, slid open her door. 

A stream of light feU across the lobby from a candle flaring 
on the first landing-place. 

The thieves must be going about their work deliberately, 
but at least the illumination would serve to show Lady Bell 


LADY BELL. 


310 

her foes, and would give her courage to fly to Mrs. Sundon’s 
room, which was at the end of the corridor. 

What if Lady BeU found the door fastened ? 

The . apprehension caused her to call out in trying tho 
handle, “Let me in. Sunny, something is wrong; for Grod’s 
sake let me in.” 

The handle turned, and Lady Bell, by her own impetuosity 
nearly falling headlong into the room, found it empty, and its 
bed empty. 

Had Sunny been awakened first ? Had she gone down and 
met her fate ? The idea was enough to convulse Lady Bell 
with fresh horror, if it had not been that, simultaneously with 
this flight of her imagination, her senses conve3’'ed to her the 
distinct impression that there were no marks of disturbance, 
on the part of the late occupant, in the room itself. A rush- 
light remained burning quietly ; no clothes were pulled down 
at random and tossed about. There was not even a trace of 
the clothes which had be#n lately worn by Mrs. Sundon lying 
neatly folded and in their proper place. 

It dawned upon Lady Bell that Mrs. Sundon had not un- 
dressed, and another instant’s inspection added the evidence 
that the bed had not been slept in. 

Lady BeU rubbed her eyes, bent her head, and listened. 
The clock in the parlour was at that moment striking two 
o’clock. 

Lady BeU had not been wrong with regard to the hour, 
that it was the middle of the night, though she dismissed 
with thankfulness the one overwhelming fear of robbers. 

But v^hat was this watching for? WUiy had Sunny re- 
nounced her pointedly -mentioned habit of keeping early 
hours ? Why was she not abed when she seemed courting 
sleep ? Had she fallen asleep over a book, or taken a 
“turn,” and fallen ill instead ? 

Lady BeU looked curiously over the banisters in time to 


SECRETS AT SUMMERHILL. 


31 


see the house door, which must have been ajar, pushed 
gently open, and Mrs. Sundon, with a shawl round her 
shoulders, a handkerchief tied over her head, and such a 
dark lantern as a conspirator might have carried in his hand, 
come in from the darkness and the night dews. 

At a slight movement — the creaking of a hoard — Mrs. 
Sundon looked up and caught sight of a blooming face, 
recovered from its brief blanching, rosy with sleep, the eyes 
yet winking away the appalling visions which they had con- 
jured up. The whole was set in a night-cap which seemed 
to reverse the usual arrangements of night-caps,* for it was 
close under the round little chin, and had an aperture 
gathered together by an imposing bow and ends of muslin on 
the very top of the head. 

Mrs. Sundon closed the slide of the lantern with a clink, 
reducing the lower lobby to darkness, and leaving Lady Bell 
in the character of “ Peeping Tom,” nowhere. 

Mrs. Sundon came with unhesitating steps up-stairs, and 
taking the first word of scolding, accosted Lady Bell im- 
patiently, scornfully, and angrily, 

“What on earth are you doing here at this hour, BeU? 
Do you mean to rouse the house ? Do you wish to catch your 
death of cold?” 

“And what are you doing there. Sunny?” retorted Lady 
Bell. “ Are you in the custom of keeping lights burning, and 
not going to bed, but taking walks in the middle of the night ? ” 

“ I knew I could not sleep,” explained Mrs. Sundon curtly 
and haughtily. “ Somebody had told me that the nightingale 
was heard already, and that there were glow-worms to be 
seen in the lane just opposite our gate. I wished to try the 
truth of the story. I thought a mouthful of fresh air might 
compose me before I lay down. Where was the harm or the 
marvel ? Back with you to bed, Bell, and don’t stand shiver- 
ing there.” 


312 


LADY BELL. 


WLere was the harm and the marvel, indeed, except that 
nightingales don’t ordinarily sing in March, or glow-worms 
keep delicate young women from their beds, and except in 
the change that had come over Sunny, which included in it 
all sorts of misgivings and anxieties. • 


CHAPTEE XLin, 


MRS. STJNDON S NEWS 



SECOND refreshing sleep, and the broad bright March 


morning light were potent as ever in dispelling Lady 
Bell’s doubts and fears of the previous night. 

When she went down to breakfast and found Mrs. Sundon, 
though looking somewhat worn in the clear searching sun- 
shine, calmly open and kind as ever. Lady Bell was fain 
to tell herself that she had been morbid and fanciful, 
and that there could have been nothing in her friend’s 
manner and actions on the previous night to bewilder and 
alarm her. 

As a culmination to every other morning cheer, Lady Bell 
had acquired a secret Avell-spring of happiness. Had she not 
Harry Fane ? Was she not his ? They might be parted for 
a longer time than she cared to reckon, but that did not 
annul facts. She had always him to think of ; she was free, 
if ever woman were free, to think of this man, and to cherish 
his image, till he was restored to her. 

And the thinking of Harry Fane, with the full right and 
title to do so, even as he might be thinking of Lady Bell on 
the deck of his frigate, out at sea, was still so new a privi- 
lege, so unimpaired by the sickness of hope deferred, the 
sense of the aching void of a mere phantom, that it was very 
sweet to Lady Bell- 


14 


314 


LADY BELL. 


She strolled out into the grounds of SummerhiU, to indulge 
in the privilege more at her ease, and with less danger of the 
thread of her reverie being broken. 

Mingling pleasantly with the reverie, and fitting into it, 
without any conscious will of hers, was the notice which she 
gave, with a dreamy smile, to every hud and plant of her old 
sphere of operations in the walks, the wilderness, and the 
fioral knots. 

She had not forgotten one of them, she was not unfaithful 
to them, but they were achievements of a past age, and of 
another world. 

What a child she had been, to be sure, when she was so 
taken up with these trifles ! As if she were not a child yet, 
in her hopefulness, her fearlessness, especially when a happy 
thought entered into her meditative, ingenious brain, and 
she clasped hands with herseK on the idea. 

She would, with these busy little hands, trace out, by a 
living, growing outline of fragrant herbs — th3une, mint, basil 
— the figure of a ship, the Thunderlomb ; none but she would 
touch it, or, for that matter, understand its significance. 
Her hands would shape it, preserve it in shape, and keep it 
free from weeds, until he came back at last to take her to 
himself, when she would bring him here to this sequestered 
corner, and clasping his arm, show him her version of the 
Thunderloml. 

She would set about it this very moment, as the first 
beginning of the glad ending. Thus, though she was not 
provided with her garden gloves, apron, or basket, she 
would not wait till she had fetched them, but started ener- 
getically to collect her materials. 

Are you attempting something already. Bell, in this out- 
of-the-way corner ?” asked Mrs. Sundon’s full voice at Lady 
Bell’s back. 

“ I am going to plan out the figure of a ship. Sunny,” said 


MRS. SUNDON'S NEWS. 


315 

Lady Bell, stopping short and turning round, panting and 
glowing from her exertions. 

Surely the moment of explanation had come, for the next 
question, which Lady BeU alike wished and dreaded, must 
be, ‘‘"Why a ship, my water-nymph?” 

But the question was not put ; instead of putting it, Mrs. 
Sundon laid her hand heavily on Lady Bell’s shoulder, and 
said with a sigh, “ I am sorry to interrupt you, my dear, 
when you are so agreeably occupied, but there is something 
which I should like to say to you.” 

Lady Bell dropped the herbs which she had been carrying 
surreptitiously in her lap, shook herself free from the particles 
of earth that she had contracted, stood upright, and prepared 
resignedly to stroll with Su^ny and hear what she had to 
say, in place of Lady Bell telling her own, dear, 'delightful, if 
naughty, story. 

‘‘Bell,” continued Mrs. Sundon, with a perceptible effort, 
“I said last night that there must be secrets between even 
the best friends. I have been thinking over the matter since, 
and there is one thing which I cannot bring myself to keep 
from you. When have you last heard of your uncle, Mr. 
Godwin of St. Bevis’s ? ” 

Lady Bell stood stdl, staring. Was the secret — her secret 
— finding its way out after aU, but in a roundabout, annoying 
fashion, of which she^did not approve? 

“ I saw Squire Godwin when I was in town, just before — ” 
she broke off, changing colour, to ask quickly, “ Have you 
heard from him ? Has he been here ?” 

“No, child; what should bring him here?” replied Mrs. 
Sundon with a shiver; then she demanded peremptorily, 
with a little choking catch of her breath, “ Tell me precisely, 
Bell, for pity’s sake, when you saw your uncle last? ” 

“ It was two nights, before I went to visit my old nurse at 
Islington,” replied Lady Bell wondering, but released from 


316 


LADY BELL. 


much personah interest in the subject; ‘‘I was four days at 
Islington, one additional day in London, and two more in 
coming down here ; I declare it seems a long time in looking 
back, so much may happen in ten days. But it is not above 
ten days, by the sun, since I said good day to Mr. Godwin in 
Cleveland Court.” 

‘‘Not more! it is too long as it is,” muttered Mrs. Sundon, 
pressing her lips together; “of course, an old story; I was 
gone wild to fancy for a second that the meeting could have 
been later. Bell,” Mrs. Sundon went on quickly, in answer 
to the speculation in Lady Bell’s eyes, “it is painful for me 
to tell you the bad news which I know for a certainty ; your 
uncle came by his death in a scuffle in a gambling-house in 
St. James’s, within the last six days.” 

Lady Bell was rooted to the spot. “ What an end 1 ” she 
said with a gasp. “He was not good to me,” she admitted 
plaintively, mourning for the want of the power of mourning, 
“but he did me a kindness on that last occasion, poor Uncle 
Godwin 1” 

“ Yes, Bell, be sorry for him if you can ; it is a miserable 
fate. But Squire Godwin was spared a greater misery,” 
cried Mrs. Sundon, in a voice shrill with anguish, “he might 
have been the slayer and not the slain, as another is, and 
that is Gregory Sundon, my husband, by whose rapier your 
uncle fell.” 

The words had barely passed the shrinking lips, when 
Lady Bell was hanging on Mrs. Sundon’s neck, lavishing on 
her teats and kisses. 

“We could not help it. Sunny ; it can make no difference 
to us,” said Lady Bell. 

“ No difference I Bell, B(?ll, ,it is little you know,” moaned 
Mrs. Sundon. 

“What will become of Mrs. Die and Mrs. lUtty?” said 
Lady Bell, after a moment’s sorrowful recollection. 


MRS. SUNDON'S NEWS. 


317 


“They are provided for,” answered Mrs. Sundon promptly, 
“you may rely on that. I believe even the heir of entail of 
what is left of the estates, will suffer them to stay on in the 
ruined shell of the house, which neither he nor any other 
man will rebuild.” 

“ Ought I to go to them ?” asked Lady Bell timidly, strug- 
gling with invincible repugnance. 

“I think not,” Mrs. Sundon decided for her friend ; “ you 
could do them no good, and they could do you none ; where 
would be the use. Bell ? But I am thinking of giving up my 
share of Summerhill, shortly,” she seized the opportunity to 
make an unsuspected announcement, speaking rapidly, while 
the meaning under her words was not plain, and her motives 
only partially expressed, sounded forced and inadequate. 

(Her trouble was too much for her, though she could keep 
it imder to judge for a friend.) 

“I shall be sorry to put you' to inconvenience or cause you 
regret, just when you have come back, too,” Mrs. Sundon 
told Lady Bell, “but I have not been well of late. The 
truth is, I doubt whether we are altogether right in burying 
ourselves. Caro’s education will soon need to be considered. 
In short, my dear Lady Bell, I have made up my mind to go 
up to town, and take lodgings there for a time.” 

Once more Lady Bell was taken aback ,* she had sustained 
a succession of surprises. 

She looked round her on the peaceful retreat where Captain 
Fane would picture her ; she even thought of her floral ship 
just planned, and the flrst slips of the edging set. 

' Lady Bell was not certain that Mrs. Sundon was acting 
with all the candour and consideration which Lady Bell 
might have expected from her friend, in thus arriving at 
an apparently flxed conclusion, without previous reference 
■ to and consultation with the joint householder at Sum- 
merhill. 


3i8 


LADY BELL. 


But the poor soul was in great grief through her wretched 
husband. 

What did it signify where Lady Bell lived while Harry 
Fane was absent ? Nay, it was in town that she would 
soonest hear tidings from the seat of war of squadrons and 
frigates. 

It was in town that Lady Bell’s acquaintance with Harry 
Fane had had its rise, progress, and completion. 

In the sequel of such a story localities are apt to be viewed 
in one of two lights — either places become unbearable as 
reminding the actor too vividly of lost joys, and are thence- 
forth shunned ; or the same places are invested with a new 
and peculiarly tender interest, and are clung to because of the 
very memories which this tree, or that turn of the road, is 
capable of arousing. 

In the last case the hope of restoration is paramount ; the 
strong sorrow of separation is both a youthful sorrow and a 
recent sorrow, and is not without an indescribable charm of 
its own. ' 

This was true of Lady Bell as she decided that she would 
like to go back to town. She would like above all things 
to be within hail of the Admiralty, and some of the admirals’ 
wives, who were on her visiting list ; she would even prize 
being in the vicinity of the Mall of St. James’s, the play- 
houses, the exhibitions, and the Pantheon, with the power of 
going to them all again. 

Lady Bell heard Mrs. Sundon saying, half-eagerly, half- 
sorrowfully, ‘‘You may make the same arrangement with 
some other friends and go to them.” 

“Why, Sunny, what are you thinking of?” cried Lady 
Bell excitedly, “are you tired of me? Do you want to get 
rid of me, and cast me adrift on the world?” 

“No, no. Bell,” denied Mrs. Sundon faintly. 

“Are you not aware that town and country are the same to 


MRS. SUNDON’S NEWS. 


319 


me ? for that matter, I’ve grown so shockingly dissipated in 
one season that I think on the whole I shall prefer the town 
if yon and Caro are there. Do yon forget all weVe been to 
each other ? or are yon so nnjnst and nnkind as to imagine 
that horrible accident which, if I may say so, only fills me 
with pity and endears yon to me the more, can part ns ? ” 

‘‘I can only thank yon, child,” said Mrs. Snndon. 

“ I have no friend one hnndredth part so near and dear to 
whom I conld go. Shonld I retnrn to Miss Kingscote, do 
yon think?” snggested Lady BeU, her lively mind taking 
stock of all kinds of probabilities, “when I conld not abide 
the prospect, withont the solace of Master Charles’s company? 
Yes, indeed, Snnny, I conld not have stood the dear, dnll, 
rongh, old sonl alone before, and that when I had not an- 
other refnge or a crown in my pocket. If the war were over, 
indeed, and all the brave men engaged in it were retnrned” 
— Lady Bell pansed. In spite of the shock which she had 
received, her eyes glittered with softest dew, her lips formed 
themselves into a smile of the gladdest anticipation, and for a 
third time the secret hnng trembling on her lips. 

Bnt again Mrs. Snndon interposed and closed anew the 
tender bars. She was gazing at the warm, rosy light in 
Lady Bell’s face, contrasted as it was with the chill, grey 
shadow on her own. She looked as if she saw the contrast. 
Perhaps at the moment she conld not bear to have the oppo- 
site fortnnes of herself and her friend shown her in detail. 
Mrs. Snndon was not the woman, in the state of mind, to listen 
to a happy love tale. 

Lady Bell was yonng in heart, beside her friend, who was 
yonng only in years. Lady Bell did not know many things 
and had forgotten others. It was not meet or seemly to 
bring her joy to be retnrned thanks for by her friend 
in mortal sorrow ; or that the wine of life bnbbling np in the 
one fnll cnp shonld be cansed to overflow into that other cnp 


320 


LADY BELL. 


in which, were rvie and wormwood, and the dregs of God’s 
wrath, wrung out. 

Mrs. Snndon converted into the merest fragmentary hint 
the narrative which Lady Bell had such a mind to tell, by 
interposing, catching up and making Mrs. Snndon’ s own of 
its introductory sentences. 

When the war is over, some fortunate man, who has met 
his fate and whose fate has met him, will wreath his sword 
in myrtle and take up house with my Bell,” said Mrs. Sundon 
gently but unsteadily. “We shall leave the particulars till 
he come to make them clear. Life is so full of uncertainties 
— no, I did not mean to frighten you, child. Bu|; if you care 
to stay with me still, and to put up with a poor, tried, broken 
woman, I promise you that I shall do the best I can for my 
^ear Bell.” 

“ I am pure certain you will, Sunny,” answered Lady Bell 
affectionately, recovering the faster from the chagrin of hav- 
ing her confidence persistently rejected, because she was 
already recollecting, and taking shame to herself for the 
inopportune moment which she had chosen for offering her 
confidence. 

Lady Bell shrank from asking Mrs. SundOn how she had 
learned the lamentable catastrophe ; whether from the jour- 
nals or a town letter, and from going into the details — with 
what had become of Mr. Sundon, whether he were in hiding 
or had succeeded in effecting his escape. Of this Lady Bell 
had no doubt, that the unhappy affair would be hushed up like 
other broils of a similar description. It concerned too many 
people of position for its exposure to be sanctioned. 


CHAPTEE XLiy. 


FROM THE COUNTRY TO THE TOWN AGAIN. 

JPYENTS had so come about, that when Lady Bell 
walked over to Nutfield to mingle congratulations and 
condolences with Miss Kingscote on Master Charles’s having 
joined the army, Lady Bell had also to tell of the contem- 
plated departure of herself and Mrs. Sundon. a crushing 
coincidence to Miss Kingscote. 

But Lady Bell was led to think that her going was a mer- 
ciful provision, so far as concerned the keeping of her secret 
from a woman who could no more keep a secret than she 
could hold her tongue. 

Lady Bell sat again in the homely parlour where she had 
stitched the chair- covers, and had sought to make the lag- 
ging hours pass more quickly by plajdng shovel-board with 
Master Charles, or by benevolently contributing her finishing 
touches to his education, in teaching him the air of a song or 
the last cotillon step. That was in the days when she was 
poor old Squire Trevor’s runaway wife. 

Now Lady Bell was a wife who gloried in her hidden 
title, a rich woman gloating over her secret hoards. But 
she tried to speak and look as before. She even strove to 
put Miss Kingscote off any scent which, imperceptible to 
Mrs. Sundon, might yet hang about Lady Bell. 

liady BeU was elaborately lively and witty. She enter- 
14 * Y 


322 


LADY BELL. 


tained Miss Kingscote with, all her adventures which were 
public property. She was really sorry on Miss Kingscote’s 
account that she, Lady Bell, had not been so obliging as to 
get into a fire or an earthquake when she was in town. 

For Miss Kingscote loved the marvellous in her own or 
her friend’s stories. 

There were twins who had lived a long lifetime apart, and 
had yet followed the well-known law of twins, by dying 
within the same hour. 

Somebody had known a party of resurrectionists who had 
been thinking of taking up a dead, and had found a living 
body. 

An honest woman had expired from no worse disease than 
a whitlow. 

A wild duck had been discovered , sitting on a nest in an 
oak-tree. 

People had seen a perfect rainbow at nine o’clock at night. 

After these lusus nature Miss Kingscote was best pleased 
with pretty stories. 

His Majesty had graciously interposed his august arms, to 
prevent the fall of a tottering old woman, who was presenting 
a petition in favour of her grandson, a hardened, dashing 
young highwayman, taken in the act, and lying under 
sentence of death. 

Her Majesty had received the most beautiful set of sable 
furs ever beheld in England, as a present from the Empress 
of Eussia, 

■ Lady Bell did not stint her old friend in such annals, but 
it was in vain. 

Within half an hour of Lady Bell’s entrance, Miss Kings- 
cote had cried out that there was a difference in Lady BelL 

The subtle distinction in eye, lip and voice, which had failed 
to attract the attention of a woman like Mrs. Sundon, or 
having attracted it, had not won a single comment or conjee- 


FROM THE COUNTRY TO TOWN. 


323 


ture fi’oni Lady Bell’s bosom friend in whole days of renewed 
intimate intercourse, was instantly patent beyond evasion to 
the simple woman whose leisure and unconsciousness were 
those of a child. 

Miss Kingscote did not hesitate to put her clumsy hand on 
the alteration, and, in other circumstances, the rude but 
natural process might have had a fascination for Lady Bell. 
She might have sought to make up to herself for the lurking 
mortification of getting off so easily at home, from Mrs. 
Sundon’s delicacy or indifference, by going again and again 
to Nutfield to be covered with confusion, and brought to the 
brink of detection by Miss Kingscote. For Lady Bell’s second 
secret was a happy secret. 

But there were two objections to the dangerous indulgence. 
Lady Bell was going away, and Miss Kingscote had an incur- 
able propensity to tell a discovery all round. 

“La! Lady Bell,” Miss Kingscote cried that first day, 
“ what do have come to you ? When you ain’t speaking, you 
sit with your lips a-smiling and your eyes staring at the wall 
as if you saw a flea a-sticking in it, and the sight were rare 
fine and main welcome to you. When wenches let their 
minds slip away like that, we all can guess what they slip to. 
These be flue Lon’on manners, to gabble like a dabchick for 
five minutes, and for the next not to speak a word. Yet I’ll 
go bail I’ve been telling you every article in Master Charles’s 
kit, and asking your mind on each. And there you sit a- 
smiling at me for all the world like a poor soul as has lost 
her mind.” 

“I’ve found it again then. Miss Kingscote,” said Lady 
Bell, hastening to atone for her offence. “ Master Charles 
took away a wrap -rascal with him, you said? ” 

“ I never said he did aught of the kind. He took away 
the good frieze coat of his father afore him. Why, the less 
we have of grand Lon’on manners che better, say I — ^you take 


324 


LADY BELL. 


me? I’m cracking my joke, my dear. Nay, we could not 
hope to keep two such fine birds as you and Madam Sundon 
long among us. Only it do come hard that you should take 
your fiight alongst with my Master Charles — the Lord bring 
him back from the wars safe and sound ! ” 

‘‘Amen to that prayer for all gallant men serving their 
country,” Lady Bell chimed in sedately, and softly, clasping 
her hands on her knees. 

“I’ll warrant you have an interest in that response, my 
Lady Bell, else you would have been none so quick in making 
it so prettily,” said Miss Kingscote. “There! now, you’ve 
gone as red as the red July fiower, which I was wont to 
compare you to when you lived with me and Master Charles, 
and we didn’t know you was quality; those were happy 
days.” 

‘ ‘ That they were. Miss Kingscote,” acknowledged kind little 
Lady Bell, very kind when you took her in the right way, and 
growing kinder now than ever. 

“ And how am I to face the next winter, with you all clean 
gone, and nought to dream on but bloody battles in the Back 
Woods with them Bed Injins ? ” Miss Kingscote bemoaned 
herself dismally. 

“But the Indians are on Master Charles’s side,” Lady Bell 
said cheerfully. 

Miss Kingscote dismissed the suggestion with scorn. 
“ Don’t go to tell me that. I’ll have nought to divert me 
but spying winding-sheets in them candles.” 

“ At least I should not begin to think of the winter before 
the summer is here,” Lady Bell recommended as good philo- 
sophy ; “ you know Master Charles has to be trained to be a 
soldier in one of the barracks near town, where we shall 
be able to see a great deal of him. Who knows but the war 
may end sooner than his training ? ” 

“ K you had but stayed with us a bit longer yourself,” 


FRuM THE COUNTRY TO TOWN. 325 

regretted Miss Kingscote ; “a wedding-ring leapt out of the 
fire right into my lap last night.” 

“Good gracious! then you must he going to be married 
yourself, my dear Miss Kingscote, so that you need not mind 
who goes,” vowed Lady Bell, like the naughty puss she was 
at that moment. 

“Ne’er a one of I, since I have given up all thoughts of 
marrying, leastways till I’m sought, for I’ll make no rash 
promises. As for Master Charles, he’s going a-campaigning, 
— the worst luck to the lasses I — afore he goes a-courting. 
The ring mun have been yours. Lady Bell, I see it in your 
face ; I know the face of a young woman as has marriage 
in her eye.” 

“You are wrong, you are wrong,” insisted Lady BeU, 
laughing in an ecstasy of mischievous delight, “I’ll wager 
you a silk gown. Miss Kingscote, that I’ll never marry 
again.” 

“It is easy to say ‘done,’ ” declared Miss Kingscote, opening 
her goggle eyes, “but you can’t ever mean it ; no, if you had 
abode still, we might have had the wedding at Summerhill, 
and that would have given us a fillip, and been a rare diver- 
sion. I would have had a hop at it myself, to set it off, 
because you are a favourite. I would have given you such a 
jig as would have shaken the boards.” 

“I am obliged to you all the same. Miss Kingscote,” said 
Lady Bell, making the tub curtsey which she had made at 
her first drawing-room. “ I would do anything in life to 
please you ; indeed I would, an’ I could ; but the thing is 
clean impossible.” 

“You are making fun of me, that’s what you’re doing. 
Lady Bell,” Miss Kingscote came to the bright conclusion ; 
“but I would have been even with you if you had abode still, 
for there is a fellow in the maze —never go for to tell me 
there’s none, with that red in your cheek and that light in 


326 


LADY BELL. 


your eye ; and you come to bid farewell to Nutfield, a-carry- 
ing a heart aneatb your gownd. But I was sure and certain 
whenever one of you madams set your noses to the smoke of 
Lon’on, you would ne’er rest till you had both harked back 
to the town.” 

The London smoke of which Miss Kingscote spoke, and which 
had smelt sweet to Lady Bell, had not begun to soil the fresh 
spring green of the parks and public gardens, when Lady 
Bell and Mrs. Sundon were gone, bag and baggage, from 
Summerhill. 

The ladies were established in genteel lodgings in the 
Haymarket. The situation was central, and full of the bustle 
which was then thought desirable in a town lodging. The 
rooms in themselves were somewhat faded and dingy, after 
those of Summerhill, but the 3^oung women who occupied 
them were sufficient to brighten and adorn most rooms. 

In the inconsistency which had lately become visible in Mrs. 
Sundon’ s character, in spite of the stress which had been laid 
on the coming requirements of Miss Caro’s juvenile education, 
the child was left behind after all. 

Caro, who was being reared so wisely and so carefully ; 
who, under the very restrictions which her mother imposed, 
had occupied so much of Mrs. Sundon’s thoughts ; the 
woman child, in whom was centred her mother’s chief 
hopes and expectations — was disposed of apart from that 
mother ! 

Caro was intrusted confidently to Miss Kingscote, that the 
child might run wild under that good woman’s perfectly 
kindly, but not over-discreet superintendence. Caro was, in 
her small person, to fill the vacant places — to lighten the 
dullness of Nutfield. 

Caro’s beautiful, stately young mother was to resume with- 
out encumbrance her place in the gay world, and take again, 
freely, her share in its pomps and pleasures, undeterred by 


FROM THE COUNTRY TO TOWN. 


327 


the last terrible misfortune which had befallen the miserable 
man she had loved, who was still her husband, and Caro’s 
father ! 

Even Lady Bell, unsuspicious and pre-engrossed, was per- 
plexed, and almost pained, by the leaving out of Caro from 
her mother’s train. 


CHAPTEE XLY. 


MASTER CHARLES SEEHTG THE LIONS, AND LADY BELL PLATING 
BO-PEEP WITH THE PUBLIC. 

ly/TASTEE CHAELES had thought, when he was quitting 
Nutfield, that his martial education would be enthral- 
ling, and that any time which he could spare from it would 
be improvingly and delightfully spent in the sights and the 
life of the town. He had believed that to renew and main- 
tain his brotherly intimacy with Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell 
would he a point of honour, and a sacrifice to friendship. 

Master Charles knew better after he had been a week in 
the awkward squad, and a hermit in a town lodging. He 
racked his back, strained his arms and legs, and caught a 
crick in his neck on parade. He was horribly liable to doze, 
and be for ever disgraced on sentry. 

He promenaded the busy streets, and grew weary of the 
exercise. 

He delivered with an important face letters of introduction, 
which were but carelessly received. He was made to com- 
prehend that while he was not a fellow of much account, 
even where his few rescued ancestral acres lay, except for 
the honest, friendly hands which had been stretched forth to 
hold him up and help him forward, he was absolutely nobody 
in mighty London. 

No club hospitality of White’s or Boodle’s was extended to 


SEEING THE LIONS. 329 

ujjh. He Tnight sit night after night at the play, or tickling 
his ears at the opera, hut it must he without a comrade. 

His very brother officers were strangers to him, like the 
rest of the world, and were also somewhat slow to recognise 
the merits which were so slenderly gilded by fortune. 

Of course, that was particularly the case with the rough 
diamonds and overgrown school-hoys of his mess, when, before 
they had become acquainted with those qualities in their last 
suh which they could heartily appreciate, they found in him 
a mind and will of his own, in what they regarded as 
reprehensible punctilios. 

He might saunter, and sit, and regale himself in the parks 
and public gardens, now open for the season, and feel all the 
time, in the middle of the cultivated surroundings and the 
animated crowds, like a pelican in the wilderness. 

He might even he so lucky as to get a card for a private 
assembly; he might dress carefully in the linen and lace 
which had been his sister Deb’s pride, and in the uniform 
that not a month ago he had held so splendid ; he might 
try conscientiously to call to mind the lessons which he had 
got gratis, from two such authorities as Lady Bell and Mrs. 
Sundon, in town breeding. 

What was his reward ? A curtsey from his hostess ; two 
fingers from his host ; some chicken-hones and negus, if he 
chose to fight for them, late in the evening. But not an 
introduction which he cared for ; not an opportunity worth 
having to practise his dancing, and show his gallantry, before 
he went off, tired and sulky, to spend money which he could 
iU spare on a coach or a chair to his barracks or his lodging. 

He could have pummelled a few feather heads, or trounced 
a few unconscionable dandies, with satisfaction, by way of 
variety. For this young gentleman was not of a sad and 
severe temper naturally. He was frank and free, bold 
and brave ; one of the best riders after the hounds, and most 


330 


LADY BELL. 


untiring dancer of ‘‘Tit for Tat” and “ Jack-on-the-Green ” 
within cry of his native Luniley. 

There were places to which Master Charles would have 
been moderately welcome as a poor young country pigeon, 
that had yet some feathers of which he might be plucked. 
But then he had passed his word to a lady that he would not 
bet or play cards unless in the tamest fashion. 

If he were fit for nothing else, he was fit to k-eep his word 
— to the salvation of his worldly estate, his independence, his 
prospects in life, and what was infinitely more — of his honour 
and honesty in the sight of God and man. People might 
call him milksop or Methodist, or what they chose ; he had 
passed his word, and he would keep it, like a sprig of the 
stock which had developed in its day many a gallant, in- 
domitable Puritan. 

Master Charles very soon opened his eyes to the advantage 
(in which lay a key to the position) of being on intimate 
terms with two of the prettiest, wittiest young women of rank 
and fashion in London. 

He would n9t have slighted Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell 
had they been neither pretty nor witty, and had their claims 
to rank and fashion failed on being put to the test ; for it 
was true — what Mrs. Sundon had once said of Master 
Charles — that he was honourable above his brethren. But 
what was generous in his manliness did not rob him of the 
acuteness which could see and seize an advantage. 

It is not to say, moreover, that Master Charles’s motives 
were wholly or even chiefly self-interested, because it was a 
great gain to him that these rooms in the Haymarket were 
open to him at any hour of the day, and he could go there 
not only for a cup of tea, but for breakfast, dinner, or supper, 
as it suited him, when he was off duty. 

He could do, and rejoice to do, something for his friends 
again. He could be of almost as great use to the ladies in 


SEEING THE LIONS. 


331 


the town as in the country. Unquestionably, in the former 
they had squires at command, but that did not argue that 
they could dispense with the manly, kindly young fellow on 
whom they could implicitly rely, and who never presumed on 
his services. 

Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell were as glad to see Master 
Charles in town as he was to see them, though the pre- 
ponderance of the gain might be on his side. He remarked 
with pride that change of place wrought no change in their 
regard. The ladies remained faithful to the league entered 
into when they were rusticating as country belles and Ladies 
Bountiful in the depths of the country. 

Master Charles made himself at home with the mistresses 
of the lodging in the Haymarket in all simphcity, as he and 
his sister had given Lady Bell Trevor and Mrs. Sundon a 
home at Nutfield. 

Mrs. Sundon took a good woman’s interest in Master. 
Charles. She had rescued him from perilous ways, and that 
alone constituted him her proUg6, though in age he was a year 
and a half her senior, as he was rather fond of reminding her. 

She was well disposed to continue the guardianship which 
he could afford her, and which she could repay a hundred- 
fold j for she could give him the priceless benefit, not of her 
experience alone, but of her purity and integrity, in threading 
his way among the snares and pitfalls which the town placed 
in the path of a young country gentleman uninitiated in its 
base craft, and liable to be abashed by its impudenoe 

Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell could enable Master Charles, 
by accepting their gentle companionship, to make in safety 
and triumph an honest acquaintance with town life, without 
stumbling and tumbling into vice and ruin. 

Lady Bell vied with Mrs. Sundon in conferring the womanly 
obligation, and in seeking worthily to entertain and cicerone 
aster Charles. 


332 


LADY BELL. 


Tlie truth was, that Lady Bell had felt it a little awkward to 
return to the gay world which she had so recently forsaken, 
while bound by a tie of which that world knew nothing. 

She had supposed that she would pass the period of Harry 
Fane’s absence in retirement at Summerhill. It was to be 
otherwise, and she did not know how she was to meet her 
hosts of admirers without showing some consciousness, and 
betraying a change. 

She did not consider that if she succeeded in appearing as 
she was before, she would be acting a false part, and imposing 
a cheat on the public. She was the most innocent and igno- 
rant of clandestine wives, yet she had a dim, vague notion 
that it would not be nice for those men — Sir George Waring, 
Lord Boscobel, and others — to press round her as when she 
was free. 

Nay, she felt that she would be fit to die with shame and 
remorse if the men were seriously misled, and supposing she 
could not parry what had been already laid at her feet during 
the winter — offers, offers of marriage, from deceived, mocked 
men to a married woman, who exulted in her marriage, 
though she let it be unproclaimed. 

One means of escape from the difficulty Lady Bell had not 
anticipated, and it proved a little trying to her girlish vanity. 

In that short interval since she had abdicated her power as 
a belle and toast, she had been just a little forgotten. Other 
claimants to her crown had appeared, and been so far ac- 
knowledged. 

There were conspicuous defaulters from the ranks of Lady 
Bell’s former sworn admirers, the most flagrant being Sir 
George Waring, and with him his famihar spirit, Mrs. Las- 
celles. 

Some said that Sir George, whose good-nature did not 
exempt him from the prevailing infirmity of spleen — or a 
tolerably vigorous and stubborn spite, had not forgotten an 


SEEING THE LIONS. 


333 


allroiit wliich. Lady Bell liad been so indiscreet as to ad- 
minister to bim on tbe nigbt of tbe masquerade ball at 
^^^lite’s. 

Sir George himself, with his toadies and imitators,- begged 
to explain that his defection was provoked by the discovery 
that Lady Bell Trevor was a little humbug. She had pre- 
tended to withdraw voluntarily from the town’s homage into 
the shade, and here was she turning up again to solicit public 
patronage before “ summer had set in with its usual severity.” 

Besides, Lady Bell lost in certain quarters by her as- 
sociation with Mrs. Sundon. These lax, yet bitter judges, 
knew Mrs. Sundon as a fine woman, who was too good for 
her neighbours. 

Had not Mrs. Sundon first insisted on marrying and white- 
washing poor Sundon of Chevely, and then been hard on 
the sinner and left him in the lurch, till worse — faugh ! 
mention it not to ears polite ! — something like murder, came 
of it ? 

If the judges wanted wifely virtue in such circumstances, 
it was virtue after the model of Mrs. Beverley’s in the 
Gamester. Virtue in a woman ought on no account to be 
guilty of turning round upon, upbraiding, departing from a 
man, not though he were self-indulgent, forsworn, craven, 
and cruel ; though he had lied to her, stolen from her, well- 
nigh destroyed her. 

There were whispers, too, early current in infiuential circles, 
of country cousins who could establish claims upon, and clog 
the heels of the dainty beauty. Lady Bell Trevor. A privi- 
leged train of detrimentals was not a desirable appendage to 
a young lady. 

One odd, authoritative fellow had appeared on the night of 
the masquerade. Here was another (if, indeed, it were not 
one and the same bumpkin) in the raw ehsign, of whom 
nobody knew a syllable, except that he was promoted to be 


334 


LADY BELL. 


tlie constant attendant on Lady Bell and Mrs. Sundon at 
public places. 

But Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell did not bear tlie malicious 
small talk of tbe bigbest society. 

Beyond a twmge, not unwholesome, of mortification at 
finding herself' not so much valued as she bad imagined, 
Lady Bell did not take to heart her losses in sublime ” 
beaux. She was positively relieved by tbe defection of a 
portion of her servants, and she had still more than she knew 
what to do with. 

At first she was incomprehensibly shy and nervous to her 
admirers ; then — growing hardened, alas ! — she began to find 
that it was rather amusing and exciting to play with and 
baffle her followers. 

Lady Bell’s confession to Mrs. Sundon had died on Lady 
Bell’s lips, till half in sensitiveness, half in pride, and partly 
in the thoughtless obtuseness of what had become custom, 
she was reconciled to Mrs. Sundon remaining in the dark by 
her own choice, with regard to an event of the impovtance of 
which Lady Bell’s friend could not have the smallest concep- 
tion beforehand. 

Lady Bell grew at her ease — cool, careless with her society, 
while they could not for their lives tell why the young widow. 
Lady Bell Trevor, should appropriate an immunity not 
gTanted to and seldom taken by single women. 

Mrs. Sundon looked on, but did not seem to see ; or, doing 
as she wished to be done by, would not interfere with Lady 
Bell’s pranks, which were really committed in the exuberance 
of satisfaction, and in girlish roguishness. 

But Lady Bell got daring in provoking and defying juries 
of chaperons and courts of men. She would offer to play 
ecarte with this man, or to make up a couple wanting in a 
country dance with that. She would employ Mr. Gower or Sir 
Thomas Neville t'^ bring her shawl, and reward him with a 


SEEING THE LIONS. 335 

pinch of snuff out of her own particular little enamel snuff- 
box. What were these men to her ? or what coiild she ever 
be to them ? Why should she be mincing and scrupulous 
like a mere girl ? 

All the time Lady Bell clung to Master Charles as to an 
old friend, and brotherly ally, who would come to her aid, 
back her, cover her retreat at any moment. 

Lady Bell won the naihe of being a terrible flirt, and that 
honest, neighbourly, brotherly friendship, which ^^'as fully 
recognised down at Summerhill, was exactly the relation 
which the suspicious, sneering, vitiated gay world could not 
understand. 


CHAPTEE XLVI. 


ANOTHER WATER-PARTY, AND A STRANGE ENCOUNTER AT THE 
DOCKS. 

^ES. SUNDON, Lady Bell, and Master Charles went often 
to Eanelagh and Vauxhall, where their presence became 
as conspicuous as, and rather more attractive than, that of 
the gigantic Eussian Count Orloff, who was yet to put his 
size and strength to use in strangling his Czar, Peter III. 

Master Charles was shown these places in their spring 
;jDerfection, while he was subjected to a little of the envy for 
superior advantages which he had vented on others, but 
which men don’t object to receive in their own persons. He 
was too modest to swagger, but he did hold up his head, 
with his chin somewhat in the air, as he made the circle of 
the Eotunda, or hurried along quite willing to be surprised 
and enchanted by the cascade, with two such ladies hanging 
familiarly on each arm. 

To Lady Bell’s great regret, Mrs. Siddons had completed 
her engagement for the season, and was gone on a profes- 
sional tour. 

Yet Lady Bell was heard to reflect, with a deep sigh, “It 
was so heavenly the last time I heard her, that I do, not 
know how I could have stood her falling oft’, which must 
have been.” 

In correspondence with this pensive sentiment, Lady BeU 


ANOTHER WATER-PARTY. 


337 

argued, rather ungratefully, that Sir Joshua did not show 
“near such fine pictures,” nor “t’other man such fine 
plates” (witness her treasured piece of Wedgwood ware), as 
she had seen on a former occasion. 

However, when Lady Bell made up a water-party to Kew, 
she admitted that it was far more harmonious and decorous 
than that which she had arranged with Lady Sundon and 
Mrs. Lascelles to Hampton. Lady Bell could never lift up 
her hands and eyes high enough, or condemn too severely 
the folly into which she had been entangled at Hampton. 

“ To think that a gentleman who was present had to tell 
us that we should be exposed to something disagreeable, 
which was just what happened. No, I shall never cease to 
be shocked at the impropriety of singing with Sir George 
AVaring on the water in the afternoon,” said Lady Bell, when 
sitting again in a barge. 

She spoke as solemnly as if her conduct before and after 
that event had been highly exemplary — the pink of prudence 
— and as if she were delivering a sermon pointed with the 
moral of her own transgressions to the blessed baby. Master 
Charles. 

“It must have been monstrous cold for you to go on the 
water like this in February,” remarked the unimpressed 
gentleman ; “I wonder how you ever came to think of it.” 

“ Master Charles, it was the loveliest day,” corrected Lady 
Bell, with a relapse into enthusiasm. “I had the charm- 
ingest weather all winter. I can’t believe that it had 
been winter, or if so, winter must have borrowed the very 
finest days from summer.” 

“ That is mighty queer, ain’t it, Mrs. Sundon,” appealed 
Master Charles ; “we didn’t know the past winter different 
from the rest of the winters in our lives. It was as miry and 
mucky as ever down at Nutfield and Summerhill.” 

“ It was not that here,” Lady Bell said decidedly. “ You 

■ 15 


z 


338 


LADY BELL. 


and Sunny make the grossest mistake when yon maintain 
that the parks and gardens, and lawns and meadows, such 
as these, must look far Letter all rustling with green, and 
red and white with roses and lilies, than when I saw them 
last. You are quite wrong. I fancy the buds must be more 
to some people than the blossoms, and the first green shoots 
of the lilac to such full purple clusters as you have yonder,” 
pointing to an overhanging bush. 

‘'Not many people will agree with you in such a whim, 
Bell,” Mrs. Sundon joined in the conversation, lifting up her 
head from leaning it on her hand. 

“I cannot help it,” replied the unshaken Lady Bell. 
“ The Mall of St. James’s will never look half so well as it 
looked under the bare boughs against the grey sky. I was 
walking there yesterday, and I thought the trees were 
scrubby and dusty, that they had suffered an eclipse like Sir 
Joshua’s pictures and Mr. Wedgwood’s ware. No, Master 
Charles, it was not monstrous cold — I never felt cold, and 
everything was monstrous pretty then.” 

“ Why, Lady Bell, you must have been bewitched,” Master 
Charles accused her. 

“ Perhaps I was,” she laughed, with tender tears in her 
laughter, “ and I should like nothing better than to be so 
bewitched again. Oh! when will the months roll on till 
foggy November brings bleak February ? — I am weary of 
the slow march of time.” 

“ I’ll have got my marching orders for another sort of 
march before then,” Master Charles told her soberly ; “ will 
that help you, Lady Bell ? It seems to me you have 
quarrelled with the present company.” 

“ How can you say so, sir, when you and Sunny are here?” 
Lady Bell flung back the accusation indignantly. “You 
must be the next thing to the best company, if you are not 
the very best, which you can no more help, than I can help 


ANOTHER WATER-PARTY. 


339 


being silly. No, your marching away will not do any good, 
unless you would all march away, and march back again, in 
double quick time, merrily.” 

In this pursuit of pleasure Master Charles and Lady Bell 
could not be expected to be very discreet. Master Charles 
indeed knew little or nothing of places and circles except 
what his companions and his instinct told him. As for Lady 
Bell, she had taken a reckless fit, and was tempted to tram- 
ple on conventionalities. But even Mrs. Sundon exercised 
scant discrimination, and put in few vetos. 

The trio were to be met wherever the public congregated, 
and there was any spectacle to be beheld, without being 
over-scrupulous as to the style of the public, or the nature of 
the spectacle. It might be Blanchard’s balloon, or a mer- 
maid that was to be inspected. The resort might be Port- 
land Chapel, or a ridotto. 

Mrs. Sundon, though she never played herself, would 
watch players. She would sit for an hour at a time like a 
statue, by a faro-table. 

“Poor soul, what wrought her husband’s undoing, and 
has made a waste of her own womanhood, is invested with a 
morbid fascination for her,” Master Charles and Lady Bell 
said to each other, with saddened faces trying to draw their 
friend away without success. 

“Let me be,” she dismissed the couple authoritatively, 
“I’m an old stager here to you two, though I wear mighty 
well. Go about the rooms, and enjoy yourselves, never 
mind me. I prefer to sit still, croaking like a raven.” 

Lady Bell had only received one letter from her husband, 
and that was from no. farther off than Portsmouth, written 
just before he sailed. 

Captain Fane warned Lady Bell that both French a*nd 
American ships had been seen in the Channel ; not that she 
was to have any fear for him, since she had armed him and 


340 


LADY BETX. 


feent liim forth to victory. But lie mentioned the presence of 
the double enemy to prepare her for a probable contingency. 
The Thunderloml might have to give chase, or to be given 
chase to, and thus be drawn out of her course, so that it 
might be impossible for Lady Bell to hear from him again, 
about the time he had told her. 

Lady Bell had not heard again, but the interval was too 
short, and she was too much built up in her late-found love 
and happiness to be troubled with apprehension. Still she 
longed for news. 

She commenced to prick her ears, and gather with avidity 
every rumour circulated either in society or in the news- 
papers, of what homeward-bound ships had come into har- 
bour, of what outward-bound ships had been spoken, of 
what land engagements had taken place, of where Paul Jones 
was last heard of. 

Master Charles catered for Lady Bell in this respect; 
naturally he was full of the movements of the two warlike 
brothers Howe — the Admiral and the General appointed to 
the same expedition of taking Long and Staten islands — 
and rejoiced over the repulse of the rebels at the Three 
Livers. 

But Lady Bell was appalled at the mention of the corps 
passing through Hell-gate in order to fight the skirmish of 
the White Plains. 

And she hailed the arrival of Sir Peter Parker’s fleet off 
Cape Pear. She gloried with trembling over the action at 
Cape Sullivan and the story of the Bristol, the cable of which 
had been cut with the shot, so that she had lain “raked ” by 
the enemy’s fire, when Captain Morris had stood wounded 
till his arm was blown off, and at one time the Commodore 
had been left alone on the quarter-deck — “ a spectacle of 
intrepidity.’’ 

She did not recoil so much from the disastrous information 


ANOTHER WATER-PARTY. 


341 


that an English transport with troops had sailed right into 
Boston harbour, not knowing that it had been evacuated by 
the British, when the lirst detachments were made prisoners 
without the chance of striking a blow. 

“ If that were to happen again,” Lady BeU said to herself, 
following a train of thought, “I should sail by the very next 
ship to go into prison with him, console him and be happy.” 

One morning, in her careful study of the St. James's 
Chronicle^ Lady Bell read that an ordinary merchant ship, 
the Sweet Sue, trading to the West Indies, cargo, sugar and 
rum, had arrived at her wharf, near London Bridge, having 
overcome the perils of her voyage. 

The Sweet Sue had encountered, and been in communica- 
tion with, several of his Majesty’s ships, having had to tack 
and beat about for a week at a time in different latitudes. 

Excited by the statement, vague as it was. Lady Bell took 
a resolution. She would procure a fly, drive away by her- 
self to the office of the shipowners whose address the news- 
paper gave, and as a simple stranger with an interest in the 
navy, would make personal inquiries if any of the vessels 
which had passed and overhauled the Sweet Sue was his 
Majesty’s frigate, Tliunderlomh, Commander, Harry Fane. 

She would not trust the commission to Master Charles, or 
to any one save herself. How could she give such a com- 
mission without entering into an explanation ? and this was 
not the time for an explanation. Besides, who would care to 
sift every word of the answer, and cross-question and extract 
further information as Lady Bell would ? She knew nothing 
of wharves or docks, but that was all the better for her pur- 
pose, since she desired privacy. 

Lady Bell had no difficulty in excusing herself from bestow- 
ing her company on Mrs. Sundon that afternoon, and luckily 
it was a day when Master Charles was on duty. 

Lady Bell set out in her fly, and did an ostensible errand 


342 


LADY BELL. 


of shopping, and then with a heating heart gave her driver 
his direction. Under his guidance, her vehicle was soon 
jammed into a double row of loaded and empty waggons, 
drays, strings of work-horses travelling backwards and for- 
wards, rattling and lumbering, getting hopelessly locked, 
and struggling in the agonies of extrication in the narrow 
thoroughfares. Lady Bell and her equipage, though it was 
but a fly, presented an incongruous appearance among the 
other vehicles, and the general company, which consisted of 
warehousemen, carters and porters, seafaring men — native 
and foreign, bargemen, and their lodging-house keepers, 
poor soldiers’ and sailors’ wives, low hucksters, clamorous 
sellers of fish from Billingsgate, with the uncouth and 
hideous nondescripts that put the finishing touches to such 
crowds. 

Amidst the huge waggons and the grinding drags. Lady 
Bell’s fly looked a fly indeed. Lady Bell herself showed as 
much out of place, contrasted with the homely, sordid figures 
in filthy smocks and jackets, ragged gowns and torn caps, as 
if she had come down from the moon. 

Lady Bell was in her plainest, darkest gauze gown, but 
that was lightened by a great point-lace collar, open at the 
throat for the heat, coming down in front to the short waist, 
where it was fastened by a knot of white riband. Her arms, 
in their long grey gloves, were crossed before her to keep 
her hands still. Her large flapping hat served her for a 
shade. 

But though Lady Bell was stared at, and even openly 
remarked upon occasionally, her progress was not impeded. 
For it did happen that fine gentlemen — ay, and fine ladies — 
found their way sometimes into these quarters ; and whether 
they came for good or for evil, they came, it was understood, 
with sufficient power to protect themselves in broad day. 

The sunshine was pouring down without shrinking or 


ANOTHER WATER-PARTY. 


3 «’ 

shame on such sights, sounds, and smells as Lady Bell could 
not have imagined. 

Lady Bell was rational and humane for her years* and 
opportunities. Looking out on these haggard and care- 
laden, as well as brutalised, distorted faces, even in the midst 
of her own engrossing concerns, her gentle pity quite as 
much as her loathing horror was stirred; and “Oh that 
Harry and I could do something in the future to help our ** 
poor fellow-creatures!” was passing through the young wife’s 
mind. “ Harry has thought and feeling to spare, hates 
frittering, hardening luxury and frivolity, is fond of dwelling 
on the good deeds of Captain Coram and such public bfene- 
factors. Harry means that we shall be reverent and tender 
folks, and it will be a fit thank-offering for our reunion when 
it comes.” 

Lady Bell kept looking out eagerly for the office which she 
was in search of, among places of a similar description, where 
sailing-vessels were to be heard of, and where intending pas- 
sengers came for information, or to take out their berths, 
among great stores and sheds extending to the quays. At 
last she saw the name, and causing her conveyance to be 
drawn up close to the door, she alighted, and walked in 
through the dark passage to the clerk’s room. 

It was past the busiest hours of the day, and there was 
only one shabby, middle-aged man sitting at a desk. He 
looked up, and stared hard at the solitary state of Lady 
Bell’s youth and quality; then leapt to the very same shrewd 
conclusion which Mrs. Siddons had arrived at long before — 
a young lady in fault, and the devil to pay. Here was a 
wheel within a wheel, which he might work to his own ends. 

Not being by any means an honourable specimen of the 
genus elderly shipping clerk, he thought less of sparing the 
young lady than of himself profiting by her errors. He 
hesitated whether, under the circumstances, he should be 


344 


LADY BELL. 


rough or obsequious, give Lady Bell false or correct informa- 
tion, forcibly detain her, taking the law into his own hands 
till he sought to communicate with her friends, or ostenta- 
tiously connive at her misdemeanours. 

In the end, Lady Bell’s self-command and self-assertion, 
qualities simply due to the great institution of her class, in 
saying what she wanted, carried the day, and induced her 
informant to take the latter and easier course. He bowed 
and becked before Lady Bell. 

He told her quickly all that the captain of the Sweet Sue 
knew of the ships of war which had signalled her, in which, 
to Lady Bell’s deep disappointment, there was not a single 
mention of the Thunderhomb or of Captain Bane, not even any 
scrap or clue which loving ingenuity could twist into a con- 
nection with that noble vessel and gallant commander. There 
was nothing for it but that Lady Bell should make the best 
of a misspent afternoon, tender a reward to the glib mouth- • 
piece of the Sweet Sue, return to her fly,, and get out of the 
foreign region as fast as possible. 

Something caught Lady Bell’s eye, however, as she was 
ushered out, and stood for an instant in the doorway. She 
was not so entirely overcome as to fail to remark that she was 
not singular in the light of a visitor from the upper ten 
thousand to the docks. While she had been in the ofiice, an 
aristocratic chair had been set down directly opposite by its 
bearers, with whose faces Lady Bell seemed to feel strangely 
familiar. The chair stood within the arch of a shed, over 
which was printed, “ Inquire within for the Hover and Heal 
boats.” 

As Lady BeU put her foot on the step of the fly, eager to 
escape from a dangerous contiguity, the chairmen lifted the 
chair and carried it past, vouchsaflng Lady Bell a glimpse of 
a face and a figure which kept her arrested on the step. 

The face was looking another way, but there was no mis- 


ANOTHER WA'rER-PARTY. 


345 


taking tke profile fiekind tke black -lace bquare, or tbe air of 
the figure in tbe mode mantle. There was Mrs. Sundon as 
sure as here was Lady Bell. These were the chairmen whom 
Mrs. Sundon was in the habit of employing when she used a 
chair. No wonder Lady Bell’s first glance had struck her 
with their well-known features. 

What Mrs. Sundon was doing at the docks and the shed 
with ‘‘Inquire within for Dover and Deal boats; ” whether 
she had been following in the track of Lady Bell, at whom 
she had not even looked ; or whether it were an astounding 
coincidence — ^Lady Bell could not tell, and durst not ask ; but 
she was as certain of Sunny’s identity as of her own. 

“ What were you doing with yourself this afternoon. 
Sunny ? ” Lady Bell did falter, when both had got home 
safely and separately to the Haymarket. 

“What was I doing with mysdff. Bell?” Mrs. Sundon 
repeated languidly ; “I was out seeking to ascertain some 
useful particulars with regard to an old servant.” 

It might have been so. It was not in Lady Bell’s power 
to pursue the investigation. 


16 * 


OHAPTEE XLYn. 


DANCING THE BOLERO. 


E curious encounter of tlie friends had slipped into 



the background of Lady Bell’s memory when she and 
Mrs. Sundon, attended by Master Charles, went to Yauxball 
next evening. They were to he in time for the fag-end of a 


large regatta, a new importation from Yenetian canals to the 


Thames. The regatta was to be witnessed by their Graces of 
Cumberland and Gloucester, with a great influx of fine com- 
pany in their train, making Yauxball for the occasion take 
the from Eanelagh. 

There were showery clouds in the blue sky, but these only 
served to freshen the gardens, and to offer opportunities for 
more races than those on the water, races from the water — 
coming in sudden, pelting downpours — to the shelter at hand 
in the grand special pavilion, the rotunda, and every kiosk 
and summer-house. And there was always the hope that the 
inconstant, swiftly-changing weather would become fine ere 
the sunset, and permit the- lamp-lit trees and the fireworks to 
twinkle and blaze without drawback. 

Lady Bell had forgotten her late expedition and its failure. 
With her healthy nerves and her grand capaeity for enjoy- 
ment, she was in a full career of pleasure. 

She had relished the spectacle of the long lines of orna- 
mental barges and gaily-dressed rowers pulling with might 


DANCING THE BOLERO. 


347 


and main between the ranks of moored barges, some of them 
bearing royal arms and containing royal liveries, all of them 
crowded with resplendent holiday freights. 

She had said to herself, rolling the private consideration as 
a sweet morsel under her tongue, that she had an express 
and peculiar title to regard the show with interest and en- 
thusiasm. Her Harry Fane belonged to the water, only i^, 
was to the great open blue sea, as these bargemen belonged 
to the river. It was as a sailor’s wife that she felt a proud 
property, next to that of the bargemen’s wives, in the rowers’ 
pluck and skill. 

Lady Bell was amused and pleased by Master Charles’s 
honest, unsophisticated admiration, his protestations that the 
regatta did not come far behind a fox-hunt, and that ho 
should like to be trained to row as well as to fence. 

Then Lady Bell and Master Charles laid a very innocent 
wager of a dish of cherries against a dish of strawberries as 
to which boat would win. Lady Bell’s boat won, which she 
said was due to the rowers acknowledging in her a fit umpire; 
and she crowed over the small triumph and the smaller piece 
of conceit. 

Lady Bell and Master Charles did not find amiss the 
scampering to get out of the rain, which they did half-a- 
dozen times before supper. 

Lady Bell hoped that Sunny was also enjoying Vauxhall 
in her own fashion. But there was no doubt, though it 
might sound paradoxical, that, since Mrs. Sundon had re- 
turned to the world and gone into society, she had become 
unsocial and reserved in her enjoyment. Even to-night, 
Mrs. Sundon was falling behind and straying apart, and the 
practice struck Lady Bell both as looking odd, and as not 
being quite safe in such a public place. 

At last Mrs. Sundon told Master Charles to take Lady BeU 
to the rotunda, for she, Mrs. Sundon, was going to join a 


348 


LADY BELL. 


walking-party, some of the members of which she knew, out- 
side ; but she would not keep Lady Bell and Master Charles 
from the music and dancing. Mrs. Sundon would come and 
meet her party in the third alcove to the right, in time for the 
fireworks. 

Lady Bell began to look thoughtful and anxious. ‘^Oh, 
dear!” said she in strict confidence to Master Charles; “I 
hope my Sunny’s misfortunes are not telling upon her, so 
that her poor head is touched and going. It sounds vastly 
impertinent in me to say it, for she has always been ever so 
much braver and wiser than I ; but she has changed, grown 
whimsical, does unaccountable things since we came to town; 
not a doubt of it.” 

“I suppose we do no unaccountable things, madam,” 
Master Charles rallied Lady Bell, seeking to reassure her 
and himself. ‘‘ The change is not at all in ourselves. We 
cannot accuse the town of working wonders on us.” 

Lady Bell glanced quickly at him. If the town were Ihus 
sharpening his country wit, so that he could turn the accusa- 
tion upon herself, there might, indeed, be no end to its trans- 
formations. 

The two had been standing in the ring watching the dancers. 
These consisted no longer, on ordinary nights, of the cream 
of the guests where ladies were concerned. They did not 
oare to dance in the mixed sets at Yauxhall or Eanelagh, 
unless where a large private party formed sets of their own, 
or when a great lady indulged in a passing frolic. 

But the regatta nights were exceptional, like the nights of 
the club balls, which were still given in summer at Vauxhall 
or Eanelagh. In the Pavilion, which was reserved for the 
royal dukes and their circles, the example of dancing had 
been set. It was not followed by Lady Bell, though she saw 
several of her acquaintances break through their rules, and 
stand up in a minuet or a cotillon. Master Charles begged 


DANCING THE BOLERO. 


349 

that she would put him through his paces, and see how much 
he had improved by the last lessons which he had been re- 
ceiving from a professor of the art since he came to town, 
without tempting his companion in the least. 

But a bolero was called for, and when the band struck up 
the appropriate air, the caller for the dance found his courage 
or that of his partner fail, and the floor remained empty. 

A bolero was an altogether different dance from a minuet, 
and a fai* greater novelty. The spectators, to whom fine 
dancing was then a fine sight, expressed their chagrin that 
no bolero was to be performed. 

A competent judge of the Spanish bolero pronounced in 
that day that ‘‘it should only be danced by married women.” 

In a light-hearted impulse, born of a sense of unbounded 
personal security, and of a secret spring of confidence and 
delight, which had been beguiling her into many follies 
lately, Lady Bell agreed with Master Charles that they 
should supply the deficiency in the company — the two would 
dance a bolero for the public edification and satisfaction. 

A bolero at Yauxhall was sure to create a sensation. A 
bolero danced by Master Charles and Lady Bell deserved to 
be chronicled for its own merits. 

Master Charles’s fresh comeliness had lately received the 
magical finishing touch which converted him from a countri- 
fied young gentleman to a fine young fellow, a man of the 
world, but without the traces of youthful dissipation and de- 
generacy which so often marred the class. 

In his red coat and gold-fringed sash, wearing his own 
curly brown hair, brought into a certain dignified order by 
the help of powder and a riband, with his white silk stock- 
ings, shoes, and buckles, and his gold-laced hat in his hand. 
Master Charles looked as handsome an honest lad as ever 
trod the boards of Yauxhall. 

For Lady Bell, she has been described often enough ; but 


350 


LADY BELL. 


this night, the refined charms which had made her one of the 
belles and toasts of the town the previous winter, were set off 
by the peculiar elegance of her dress. 

Lady Bell wore a white muslin gown, with a broad blue 
sash — the only thing that was not delicate gossamer in her 
dress — loosely confining, as it would have confined a child’s 
waist. Lady Bell’s clipsome waist. A muslin neckerchief, 
screening and shading her white neck and shoulders, was 
worn under the low body of the gown, with a light, broad 
frill falliijg to the waist. Even the chip-hat which she wore 
in full dress at Vauxhall, had a wide muslin border under its 
brim, floating round and softening her laughing face. 

So pretty were the pair, so genteel and well-matched were 
their figures, with such spirit and taste did Lady Bell especi- 
ally dance the bolero, that rounds of vociferous applause 
accompanied the performance, and when it was over, once 
more for a moment tongues “wagged all” in Lady Bell’s 
praise. 

“ By the powers ! I could go in for Lady Bell yet, sir, if I 
had your chance,” swore an impressible man to another. 

Mon cher, no,” objected his companion, more supremely 
selfish, cursed with a more vindictively retentive memory, and 
in his blandness occupying himself with adding a sting to the 
universal flattery. “ The widow has got far too skittish for 
a slow dog like me. You need not laugh. I have observed 
her romping all the evening with this last country cousin. 
To be sure, that ain’t much, when she and her immaculate 
friend, Mrs. Sundon, have been seen with him literally every- 
where for the last month. No, thank you. Grower. Let her 
country friends keep Lady Bell, if they can.” 

“Ah!” the last speaker suddenly shrieked like a woman. 
“ What does that rude fellow mean by tearing past us, and 
treading on my toes ? I have a prejudice against having my 
toes trodden upon, even in a mob ; but if he desires to pro- 


DANCING THE BOLERO. 


351 


yoke me into sending you for his card, with a promise of 
calling for him next day, he shan’t he gratified, in return for 
his impudence.” 

“ I don’t think any offence was intended, Sir George. The 
gentleman did not see ns.” represented the more placable 
Gower. 

‘ ‘ Let the offence He down among the dead men, then, with 
the other fricasseries which will soon put Yauxhall and 
Banelagh beyond the pale of polite people,” granted Sir 
George indifferently, having nursed his toes into convales- 
cence, and recovered his boasted equanimity. “I say, Nat, I 
am tired of staring and being stared at. Let us have a game 
of ombre, if you will not lay five guineas yon fellow did 
not mean to jostle me ; but I am afraid he is too far off by 
this time to have the dispute properly settled, without more 
trouble than it is worth.” 

There is a chill creeping sensation, a result of the weather, 
or of the state of the body, and the nerves, which sometimes 
comes over men and women in the middle of light, laughter, 
and the best of company. Superstition has given the sensa- 
tion voice and words varying according to the race and gene- 
ration. But the differing interpretations, whether serious 
or mocking, coincide in bearing reference to an evil eye, 
an enemy, or a grave. A hostile infiuence, however super- 
ficial, transitory, and purely material, is recognised even in 
the lightest turning aside of the sensation, and of the effect 
which it produces on the mind. 

Lady Bell experienced the feeling at the very moment 
when she had stopped dancing the bolero. In addition 
to the feeling there occurred to her the most extraordinary 
hallucination. 

As Lady Bell raised her eyes to the closely -packed circle 
of admiring faces round her and Master Charles, there swam 
before her, for a second, Harry Fane’s marked face, not as 


352 


LADY BELL. 


she had seen it last, subdued with tenderness, but stern with 
displeasure, and contracted with anger. 

Lady Bell opened her eyes widely, and gazed around her 
on all sides of the swajdng mass with a mixture of eagerness 
and distress, so vivid and painful was the vision which she 
had conjured up. 

There were many white facings to blue coats, like that 
above which Lady Bell’s imagination had set the jailor’s face, 
for naval officers had abounded at the regatta ; but no such 
face, no such expression met her search. How should it? 
What room was there for it ? 

“Have you done yourseK up. Lady Bell?” inquired 
Master Charles with kindly concern for her involuntary shiver 
and the paling of her complexion. 

“No, I don’t think so,” answered Lady Bell with hesita- 
tion, “ but I should like to sit down, I should not mind going 
home and not waiting for the fireworks — ^No, I don’t mean 
it,” she corrected herself, with a faint laugh when she saw 
her squire’s discomfiture. “ I could not be so cruel, for I 
know how fond you are of the fireworks — don’t contradict me, 
and I’m sure I should not know where to find Sunny, till she 
choose to come and fetch us.” 

But Lady Bell, with all her efforts, could not recover her 
ease and gaiety ; she was restless, she soon got up, and pro- 
posed that she and Master Charles should go in pursuit of 
Mrs. Sundon. 

Master Charles was ready to do anything Lady Bell 
proposed, even to giving up the fireworks, though they 
were the grand winding up of the evening to his country 
breeding. 


CHAPTEE XLVm. 


CROSS PURPOSES, WITH AN OLD FACE IN A NEW LIGHT. 

j^J^ASTEE CHAELES and Lady Bell strolled here and there 
under the rustling boughs and coloured lamps, a com- 
bination which made Yauxhall and Eanelagh look like fairy- 
land to those happy unsophisticated people for whom fairies 
and fairyland never ceased to exist. 

The couple walked after the principal parties, which were 
taking advantage of the eventual clearing up of the weather, 
and some one of which Lady Bell regarded as likely to have 
been joined by her friend. 

But no Mrs. Sundon’s conspicuously elegant person could 
be detected in the main figure of any group. 

“I should say that that was Sunny,” cried Lady Bell, 
stopping and peering down one of the dusky unlit side walks 
which were generally avoided, “if there were more people 
with her ; but there is only one man, is there not ? Why 
there is not even one, and it is Mrs. Sundon, I know her by 
the way in which she carries her train, and holds her fan. 
Did you ever see such avoidance of her fellows, or such fool- 
hardiness ? Sunny, Sunny ! ” running forward to remonstrate, 
as Mrs. Sundon advanced into the light, “it is not safe or 
right to go walking about alone, and out of the frequented 
parts of the grounds, as we did at Summerhill, you must 
know that ? ” 


A A 


354 


LADY BELL. 


“ I knew it before you could walk alone, madam,” answered 
Mrs. Sundon with a dubious laugh, “ so that there was really 
no occasion for you and Master Charles coming to look after 
me — a nice pair of chits to propose to take me, your elder — 
yours at least, Bell, and the matron of the party, under your 
wing,” she ended with unmistakable banter. 

“ Sure, there is one thing that you do not know. Sunny,” 
protested Lady Bell with great gravity and earnestness, 
“that you are still a*young and very handsome woman.” 

“I think I have been told so in my day, Bell,” said Mrs. 
Sundon carelessly, “ my day which is past, girl, for all you 
say,” she continued with a fall in her voice. “ But what is 
more to the purpose, I like people to keep their promises. 
Where should I have been if I had gone to seek for you in the 
appointed alcove ? There is no good in looking foolish ; mind 
your word another time. Hark ! I hear the gun fired as the 
signal for the fireworks, let us hurry to get good places.” 

“ She has turned the tables upon us,” whispered Master 
Charles as Mrs. Sundon preceded Lady Bell and him. 

“Sunny always liked her own way,” announced Lady 
Bell meditatively, in an answering undertone, “and hated 
to be interfered with ; but then she was the last person to 
give just cause for interference, the very last person to 
commit an unreasonable, for a woman of the world, an in- 
decorous action — don’t you think so. Master Charles ? ” 

‘ ‘ I was wondering whether you reckon yourself a woman 
of the world, Lady Bell,” he observed lightly. 

“ Oh, nonsense, sir, you are aware that I am not half 
so wise, or for that matter so good as Sunny,” said Lady Bell 
pettishly. 

“ She may have business of her own which she wishes to 
conduct apart from us,” suggested Master Charles. 

“What business could she conduct at Yauxball?” Lady 
Bell turned upon him, questioning him sharply. “No, I 


CROSS PURPOSES. 


355 


will not have such an explanation ; you do not know what 
you are saying, Master Charles. It is disparaging to Mrs. 
Sundon, to make such a supposition. I should not like her 
to have business to conduct apart anywhere, though I know 
she has her secrets,” Lady Bell recollected herself, “ sad, sad 
secrets of the past, my poor silent injured Sunny ; hut that 
is all over, and I should hate her to have business to conduct 
at Yauxhall.” 

“ Well, I’m at my wits’ end for anything farther to say,” 
declared Master Charles, unless,” and here he spoke very 
simply and seriously, ‘'that, knowing Mrs. Sundon to be as 
wise and good as you and I know her to be ” — and beseemed to 
pause and dwell upon, not shrink from the knowledge, while 
an expression of reverence and devotion rose up in his round 
ruddy face and dignified it — “we need not fear to trust her in 
acts that would be unjustifiable in another.” 

“Oh, thank you, thank you. Master Charles,” cried Lady- 
Bell warmly, ‘ ‘ that is the very assurance I wanted ; you 
have done me a world of good, and sure we are none of us to 
judge our neighbours by appearance. What would become 
of ourselves if we were treated in that fashion ? It is manful 
of you to stand up for her on what you know of her good- 
ness. She feared that what she did for you — ^because she 
would not content herself with merely shaking her head 
lackadaisically and letting you go on th e road to ruin — would 
turn you dead against her, and make you set her down for 
ever after as a hectoring, domineering woman. She was so 
pleased to find that you were true to her and to yourself.” 

“Was she ?” demanded Master Charles with fervour, pass- 
ing over the compliment from Lady Bell herself. “ Hector- 
ing, domineering! Does Mrs. Sundon not know that I 
think her the noblest and kindest of women ? Does she 
not believe that I would do anything — die to serve her?” 

“I think she gives you credit for very friendly feelings,” 


356 


LADY BELL. 


replied Lady Bell a little evasively and awkwardly, beginning 
to repent of having betrayed her companion into heroics. 

But who would have thought it ?” she put it to herself 
in a succession of silent considerations, “ that the young 
fellow was so deeply and fondly grateful to Sunny ? 

“It is as well that he is going to the wars, for though 1 
would stake my life on his honour, next to Harry Bane’s, 
there are such grievous contradictions as miserably unfortu- 
nate attachments. 

“ Master Charles deserves a better fate than to form such 
an attachment, and waste his heart and his young days 
upon it. 

“ Silnny is a very uncommon woman, a rare jewel, the 
more irresistible to a generous man because of her sor- 
rows. 

“She might well stand between poor Master Charles — 
though we think him a boy, he can appreciate her, and he 
grows more of a man every day — and the restoration of the 
Kingscotes of Nutfield. I trow Sunny would, in her very 
integrity, have done our boy little good in that case. 

“But there will be time and space enough and to spare, 
for change in such an incipient, desperate attachment as his, 
that is to say if it exist, during these weary wars for which 
Master Charles is bound, like every man worthy of the name.” 

Aloud Lady Bell contrived to render the too serious and 
suggestive conversation a jesting one. 

“ If you swear service so sentimentally to a third person, 
who is not within hearing, I vow. Master Charles, people 
will think you are making love to me.” 

“Ihav’e no objection,” retorted the young fellow, piqued 
into sauciness by the necessity of retaliating on Lady Bell 
the suspicion of ridicule, which she had cast on his impulsive 
speech. 

“ But, unfortunately, I have the greatest objection, sir,” 


CROSS PURPOSES. 357 

Lady Bell nodded arclily back to bim. “Ab! there goes 
the first rocket.” 

Master Charles was not yet so confirmed and undone a 
victim to gratitude and Mrs. Sundon, as not to have a very 
considerable amount of excitement and glee to spend on the 
fireworks. “ Did you ever see the like ?” he was constantly 
appealing to his companions, while he clapped his hands and 
stamped his feet, and wished in his hearty country voice, 
which sounded distinctly in the middle of the hubbub of 
the gala crowd, that he had the fireworks to set off down 
at Lumley. “ Wouldn’t they make the m'ajor sneeze and 
jump ? ' There was a green cheese. Now we have a 
crumpled up red riband. Why they’ve put to shame the 
lamps which I thought like the Turkish rogue Aladdin’s 
jewelled fruit, the first night — not to say our modest homely 
moon and stars.” 

Lady Bell interrupted his rhapsodies by grasping and 
clinging to his arm, while she drew a low sobbing breath. 

“What is it. Lady Bell? Does anything ail you?” he 
inquired a second time that night. “ Has any rascal dared 
to fiing a squib at you ? Just show him to me and I’ll 
trounce him, though you have sustained no harm that I can 
see ; I can tell you that for your comfort. But you’re ill, 
poor soul ! granting that it must have come on sudden, for 
you were making play a moment ago.” 

Master Charles spoke out his regret as a relief, to his own 
and Mrs. Sundon’s wonder and anxiety, when the glare of 
light feU on Lady Bell’s face, scared and wild with distress, 
and her hands clenched from the effects of a shock, while he 
and Mrs. Sundon were hastening to withdraw Lady Bell from 
the concourse, to make her rest on Master Charles, to dis- 
patch an attendant for a chair. 

“I am better,” Lady Bell strove to say with a gasp in 
response to their cares. “ It is nothing,” glancing round her 


35 « 


LADY BELL. 


terrified; “I’m mortal sorry for alarming and troubling you, 
laut I could not help it — and I must be disordered after all, 
for twice to-niglit, something which could not be, passed 
before my eyes.” She stopped, shuddering at the idea. 

“ Don’t think of it, child,” Mrs. Sundon forbade Lady Bell 
with emphasis, “you have been eating unripe fruit, or loitering 
about in wet shoes. I take blame to myself for not having 
looked better after you. Grod help us ! I am a selfish 
woman to have the charge of a young thing like you.” 

“No, no,” said Lady Bell, “it is not that. But haven’t 
you heard,” she quaked in every limb again, yet she could 
not let go the disturbing thought, “that deaths are some- 
Irimes made known to those most concerned in them by the 
appearance of the dying to the friends far away ? Yet oh ! 
cure the dying would look like themselves, as they were wont 
to look, not like that,” moaned Lady Bell, cowering, and 
hiding her face. Master Charles and Mrs. Sundon glanced 
at each other in utter perplexity. 

“I have it, Mrs. Sundon,” exclaimed Master Charles 
triumphantly, “it was the green light from some of the 
whirligigs. I noticed it made every body, even you, appear 
ghastly.” 

“We’ll have no more, Bell,” Mrs. Sundon laid down the 
law authoritatively; “you are disordered, your fancy is 
running riot. I must get you home and to bed, when I shall 
prescribe for you. If you are not better to-morrow, we shall 
have you blooded, and you’ll be all right; we’ll have no 
more chimeras dire.” 

The truth was, that in one of the sudden bursts of vivid 
illumination which made the summer dusk all the darker by 
the contrast, Lady Bell had again seen for a horrible moment, 
borne on the crest of a wave of faces, Harry Fane’s face 
directed towards her with a look of keen reproach and bitter 


scorn. 


CHAPTEE XLIX. 


THE INTELLIGENCE IN THE GAZETTE. 

TF La'dy Bell had been very sick next day, she would have 
been brought round marvellously, and made pure well” 
by the first naval intelligence which greeted her indefatigable 
study of the Gazette. It was indeed transporting intelligence, 
before which all disorders and chimeras must vanish. 

His Majesty’s ship Thunderhomh, Captain Fane, eighty guns, 
on its way to America, had inet off the Madeiras, chased, 
engaged, and taken an American prize — the Susquehannahy 
Captain Humphrey, eighty-four guns. 

The Thunderhomh having sustained considerable damage, 
and having come up with other ships of the squadron. Cap- 
tain Fane had been directed to -transfer the troops to the 
Royal Duke, to put his own ship into the first friendly port for 
temporary repairs, and then to return with his prize in 
order that the Thunderhomh might be thoroughly over- 
hauled. 

In accordance with the order, the Thunderhomh^ with the 
Susquehannah in tow, had arrived in British waters, and was 
lying off Portsmouth harbour. 

Come home already — so soon — beyond her fondest hopes 
and expectation, with such honour ! Lady Bell’s experience 
of second sight, in place of having been an evil omen, as she 
had dreaded, had proved the most joyous of auguries. But 


360 


1.ADY BELL. 


how was it — ^how had it been ? The coincidence was curious. 
Could Harry Fane hare been at Yauxhall? 

So far as time was concerned he nciight, for it was quite 
possible that he had travelled from Portsmouth as fast as the 
news of his ship’s gallant exploit. 

But why not come to Lady Bell at once? Why at Yaux- 
haU ? Above all, why in alienation and wrath ? 

A little reflection supplied one solution. Captain Fane had 
probably not had a chance, since they parted, of getting one 
of Lady Bell’s letters, announcing her removal to London. 

He must have gone up to town in the first place to deliver 
his dispatches ; and what old sailor lord of the Admiralty had 
not been yesterday at the regatta at Yauxhall, where Captain 
Fane might have followed his chiefs ? 

But why not run to Lady Bell in the second instance — for 
Harry, of all men, must do his officer’s duty first — why, 
instead, keep away from her, and terrify her as with glimpses 
of a rancorous, avenging ghost ? 

The only answer to be found was, that if she had seen 
Harry at all, and if he had known she was in the throng and 
had distinguished her, he might judge that she would not 
wish an immediate and public revelation of her marriage, 
such as would have been risked by his giving her the over- 
whelmingly glad surprise of seeing him when she had not a 
grain of reason to look for him till a number of months — 
years even — of exposure and danger had passed. 

He might fear the risk to body and mind of so great a 
surprise, blest as it was, coming upon her totally unprepared. 
He might well choose that there should not be thousands of 
witnesses to their reunion. But why visit the trying restraint 
which circumstances imposed upon him as an offence on her ? 
Why frown upon her from a distance ? This from her Harry, 
her best of men, who was so just, and even righteous over 
much, so full of yielding tenderness to herself ! 


THE INTELLIGENCE IN THE GAZETTE. 361 

Lady Bell could not, by any means, put together the last 
pieces of the puzzle. 

But what did it signify ? Harry Bane was back in Eng- 
land, safe and sound from tempests and battle, within three 
months, as she had never dared to anticipate. 

The same English sun and wind were shining and blowing 
on husband and wife. The same London sights and sounds 
which they had before looked at together, were anew pre- 
sented to both of them. 

t 

Harry Eane was here to claim her when he should think 
fit. They might begin their bright, good life, any day. 

Lady Bell was singing her Te Beum to herself, without a 
doubt that in a single delightful conversation he would 
explain everything which in her silliness and stupidity she 
misunderstood or failed to comprehend. 

In the course of the silent singing of her Te Beum, Lady 
Bell sang snatches of other songs aloud, laughed, ran from 
room to room, and from window to window, and drove Mrs. 
Sundon into having grave doubts of her friend’s rapid and 
complete recovery. 

Mrs. Sundon accused Lady Bell with reason of being still 
flighty if not vapourish ; while Lady Bell answered Master 
Charles’s early inquiries after her health with the most 
disdainful repudiation of any possibility of her having an 
ailment this morning, so that he was reduced to discrediting 
the evidence of his own senses, and to taking an opposite 
view of the case. He suspected the reality of Lady Bell’s 
attack the evening before, and feared that she was learning 
a fine lady’s whims and affectations. 

“I tell you, good people, I’m as merry as a cricket, and 
that is a great deal merrier than a king,” said Lady Bell. 
“I’m as fresh as a daisy, which beats to sticks for freshness 
the red gilliflower to which Miss Kingscote used to compare 
me. It is an uncalled-for piece of impertinence in any man, 
16 


LADY BELL. 


362 

woman, or child, to think I could be otherwise. ‘Fal-lal-a- 
fal-al-a,’ 

“ John, John, John, 

The grey goose is gone ; ’ ” 

and then Lady Bell went and shut herself up in her own 
room, sat down, and cried with sheer happiness. 

Lady Bell stayed all the morning in the house. She was 
certain that he would find her out, and come to clasp her in 
his arms, whether Sunny and Master Charles were there or 
not. But lest there should be any mistake, lest he had not 
come to town with his dispatches, and her brain had been 
distempered during the last twenty-four hours, and because 
she could not write to him at his old lodgings, to which he 
jiiight not have returned, and where her letter might fall into 
strange hands, and produce a premature exposure and grand 
esclandre, she wrote a letter chokeful of raptures to Portsmouth. 

AVhen that was done, a little reaction and longing sickness 
of hope deferred came over Lady Bell. 

After all, Harry Pane was certainly not in London, in 
spite of the extraordinary intimation which she had received 
of his return. She should not see him this day yet. 

No, she would not quail before the solemn warning of what 
a day or an hour might bring forth. She would look for- 
ward in unshaken faith and hope to new chances — sweetest 
chances, to-morrow. She must, or her fond heart would 
break in the midst of her anticipated happiness. 

She was getting low, apprehensive — she, who ought to be 
BO proud of being the wife of a young hero, whom every 
Englishman would honour since he had plucked a fresh 
laurel for his country. She, who ought to be so thankful to 
Heaven for having favoured her above so many far better 
women, in restoring to her her lover and husband. But it was 
he, and not she, who was worthy, and it ought to be enough 
for her to belong to him — to so great and good a man. 


THE INTELLIGENCE IN THE GAZETTE. 363 

Lady Bell was vexed with herself for spoiling the lustre of 
this day by fretting over so small a disappointment as not 
seeing Harry Fane for another day, and by turning back and 
trembling afresh before the Jhantic imagination of the shadow 
of his changed face at Vauxhall. 

It was a relief to her to find that she must go out in the 
afternoon, after leaving the most particular messages with 
regard to her destination, and to the time when she would be 
back, for the benefit of any lagging caller at the lodging in 
the Haymarket. 

The fact was. Lady Bell had an appointment of many days’ 
standing — an appointment which she had held till this very 
morning, when she had forgotten all about it, to be of 
importance, and which it was for Captain Fane’s interest, as 
well as hers, that she should keep. 

It had been in a loving, foolish dream of benefiting him, of 
winning for him a portion equal to his largest share of prize 
money, that Lady Bell had been tempted to invest a portion 
of her yearly income in a lottery. This was the first of the 
days fixed for the drawing of the lottery tickets at the 
Museum — days which thousands of holders of tickets, and 
fractions of tickets, had written on heart and brain. 

Lady Bell was a ticket holder, and what if she should gain 
the fifteen thousand pounds prize, wherewith to endow her 
sailor ? 

The sum would form an ample provision for their establish- 
ment — a redemption from the gulf of genteel poverty — a 
vindication to their prudent friends of the improper conduct 
of the couple who, without reference to fortune, had falleq in 
love and rushed into matrimony. 

Of course it was just posssible that Lady Bell might not 
gain the highest prize ; but though it came to the worst, it 
was only the loss of a small slice of one year’s income. 

Lady Bell had agreed to drive to the Museum in the coach 


3^4 


LADY BELL. 


of an old lady of her acquaintance, the same who had induced 
her to take the ticket, and who herself dabbled in every pie 
of the kind which she could come across. 

Two Bluecoat boys were employed, as an odd branch of 
their education, to draw the tickets out of the wheel ; and 
the numbers drawn, with their results, were immediately 
placarded, for the information of the great crowd that filled 
the street. 

By the time Lady Bell and Mrs. Dormer drove up, files of 
carriages were wedged into such a living mass as Lady Bell 
in all her sight-seeing had never beheld. 

“ Upon my word, it is as good as a hanging,” said the old 
lady gaily. ‘‘Now that we’ve got in we’ll be kept here for 
hours, you may depend upon it. It is lucky that we took 
our dinner before we came. What is the last announcement ? 
You have better eyes than I, Lady Bell; but even I can pick 
out that if our numbers ain’t there, neither are the fifteen, 
nor the ten, nor the five thousand prizes. I had a runner, 
with his pen behind his ear, to bring me the earlier lists.” 

“ Shouldn’t you have heard, madam, without that trouble? ” 
asked Lady Bell. 

“I am forced to be particular,” explained Mrs. Dormer,' 
“for I always insure against the day’s drawing, in order that 
I may have an additional chance of winning a penny ; for 
bless us and save us, there are such rogues in this world ! 
Ain’t it breathless work ? — the cards is nothing to it.” 

In the thick of such breathless work. Lady Bell sat waiting 
till placard after placard was put out, devoured by greedy 
eyes, and at intervals, as it contained one of the prizes, was 
received with a general hoarse roar of strangely blended 
congratulation and condolence — congratulation for the one, 
or by comparison, the few winners who held alone or in 
company the lucky number ; condolence for the many losers. 

Lady Bell’s thoughts wandered. Worn out with agitation. 


THE INTELLIGENCE IN THE GAZETTE. 365 


she grew tired, depressed. She could not bear to see the 
tremulous head and bleared eyes of her aged companion 
acquire a kind of spasmodic steadiness and intentness, as 
they turned unfailingly towards the greatest gambling booth 
in the country. 

fif Lady Bell could count no other cost, she could reckon 
what might be the loss to herself this day of an interminable 
seat opposite the Museum. She could calculate feverishly 
what might be happening in the rooms in the Haymarket in 
her absence. She began to rue her haste to be rich, though 
it were mainly for the sake of another. Above all, she was 
sorry for the inconvenient mode and time which she had 
taken to acquire her riches. 


CHAPTEE L. 


DRAWING A BLANK IN THE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 

M ES. DOEMEE souglit to improve the tediousness, which 
was no tediousness to her, of the process, hy garrulously 
retailing to her own content the incidents of all the crowds 
which had come within her experience, especially of one in 
the days of her youth. It was not on the occasion of a lottery, 
or a coronation, or a royal lying in stdte, hut of all things 
one of Mr. Whitfield’s meetings among the furze and gorse, 
and seiwing to scare awaj* the footpads of Blackheath. 

“ He called the painted bits of pasteboard the Devil’s 
books, my dear, and I ha’n’t touched the cards to speak of — 
never as some of my generation have done ; but I don’t 
think the severest of the preachers could say a word against 
the lotteries, since they are the only mode by which we poor 
bodies of quality can Hope to become rich and charitable 
before we die.” 

At that moment Lady Bell, who had been leaning back in 
the coach, leapt up radiant. 

“ Don’t say you’ve gained, and I got the number for you, 
and took another for myself,” cried the old woman with a 
groan of exasperation, as she broke off her narrative. 

“ No, no, Mrs. Dormer, what do I care ? ” Lady Bell 
assured her friend impatiently. “ Take the ticket and keep 
it, if you like. But do you see these gentlemen pushing 


IHE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 


367 

their way through, t’other side of the street ? I must speak 
to one of them. I tell you he is the naval officer whose ship 
has just done so splendidly in taking an American prize.” 

“Ah! what giddy things these widows are — their heads 
constantly running on men,” sighed Mrs. Dormer, aside, with 
virtuoue indignation, as Lady Bell, between desperation and 
ecstasy, losing sight of everything hut Harry Fane over the 
way, within twenty yards of her, threw open the coach door, 
leant out, and waved her handkerchief to attract his notice. 

“Care for him in a patriotic way, I daresay!” Mrs. 
Dormer continued to mumble sardonically, while the gentle- 
man thus summoned had to elbow a passage to the coach 
door. “ A good enough pair of legs, hut as forbidding a 
face as ever I saw. Oh, these widows, these widows ! they 
will put their heads in nooses.” 

Lady Bell had been guilty of a great demonstration in 
order to bring Captain' Fane to her, and yet, when he came 
slowly to the side of the coach — compelled to do so by his 
companions, who had observed the signal, and called his 
attention to it — she sat motionless, though the door was wide 
open for her to spring out. 

But the bright colour sank as rapidly as it had flamed into 
her cheeks. She had not a word to say — the words froze on 
her lips as her eyes grew fixed in dismay. “Harry Fane 
could never act unkind to her, never look unkind on her,” 
she had said to herself with the fullest conviction, only the 
night before, to dissipate efi’ectually the tantalising terror 
which had haunted her ; and now, in broad daylight, she 
had ocular demonstration, unless her senses had forsaken her 
altogether, that Harry Fane could look unkind on her ; for it 
was with a sullen, lowering brow bent on her that he ap- 
proached the coach. 

This was the greeting, on his return, of the three months’ 
husband who had persuaded her into a secret marriage, and 


368 


LADY BELL. 


parted from lier after its celebration had made^ her his till 
death, coming back once and again to hold her in his em- 
brace, and to dash from his eyes the tears which did no dis- 
honour to his manhood. 

“ Your servant. Lady Bell Trevor said Harry Fane, with 
deadly coldness, and he waited as if for the commands of the 
young creature whose unlimited trust in him and devotion to 
him, were withering and shrivelling before his pitiless face. 

Her heart was smitten with a bolt, her brain was on fire, 
her tongue was tied except to stammer out a senseless “ You 
are here. Captain Fane.” For she was beginning to wonder 
wildly was it a dream after all — a delusion — her closest 
connection with this man, her tenderest regard for him, 
bought by his passionate regard for her ? 

Just then another announcement of numbers, and of a 
prize drawn, was stuck up. 

Mrs. Dormer, fancying that she saw one of her numbers in 
the list, and renouncing the hope of any further assistance 
in reading the column from Lady Bell, beckoned in her turn, 
out of the coach window on Mrs. Dormer’s side, to a trades- 
man whom she patronised, in the crowd. She got him to 
stand on the step of the coach, and condescended to lay her 
head to his, and plunge into the information which he con- 
veyed to her. Mrs. Dormer was so deeply engaged, that 
Lady Bell and Captain Fane, at the opposite side of the 
coach, might have vowed love or plotted treason without the 
least danger of discovery. 

Fortune, as usual, favoured the couple who would not, or 
could not, avail themselves of her favour. 

Lady Bell did rouse herself with a great sigh, and strive to 
break the meshes of the web which was being woven round 
her, to get out of the entanglement of the wretched mystery. 

“ Why did you not write to me that you were come back, 
Harry ? ” she bent towards him and whispered imploringly 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 


369 

“I should not have known where to write to, madam,” he 
answered, as hard as ever, and with a cruel taunt in his next 
words. ‘‘It was not my fault that you were not prepared, 
and happily I was not left to waste my time by going down 
to the address with which you had favoured me.” 

She tf^as so guiltless of beguiling him, that the taunt at 
least did not hurt her, did not reach her in fact. 

“ Oh yes, no doubt you thought I was at Summerhill,” she 
replied, eagerly catching at any straw of explanation — excuse 
for him, hope for her. 

He neither smiled nor said another word. She was forced 
to he the speaker, with her heart sinking like lead in her 
bosom, more and more heavily every moment, with despera- 
tion and despair growing upon her. And she had been so 
happy only that morning ! Her reliance on him had been 
perfect, her faith unbroken from first to last. Her fall was 
so great, so inexplicable. 

‘ ‘ I only saw that the Thunderlomb had come home with a 
prize in the news prints this morning.” 

She did not dare to break off and inquire, “But were 
you not at Yauxhall last night ? ” though she remembered 
it, and the further stab of the remembrance caused her to 
catch her breath, and prevented her from adding the simple 
truth, if she could have spoken it then, “It was the 
happiest moment of my life,” and from exclaiming, “How 
brave and fortunate you have been, sir; how I rejoice in 
your bravery and our good fortune ! ” Instead, she stumbled 
on with her irrelevant words, “ I had to come here as I had 
promised with Mrs. Dormer. I have a ticket in the lottery, 
and who knows but I shall take the head prize ? ” 

He crushed harshly the little piteous appeal to his in- 
terest in her concerns. “ I don’t envy you if you do,” he 
said ; “lightly won is lightly held. I endorse that proverb. 
Besides, these lotteries are abominable swindles, fit only for 
16 * 


B B 


370 


LADY BELL. 


a corrupt and false age. I once saw a man who had 
staked his last shilling for a blank — he wore a blue-jacket, 
too, and had just come from a cruise — blow his brains out on 
these walls. But come, I am not fool enough to flatter myself 
that my poor sailor’s experience and opinion of lotteries will 
weigh a thistledown with a fine lady. I am only detaining her 
from attending to her proper business.” And with another 
fierce sneer, like the madman he was at that moment, and 
an ostentatiously low bow, Harry Fane drew back, rejoined 
his friends, and passed on with them, while Lady Bell looked 
after him blankly, with lack-lustre eyes. 

At the same instant Mrs. Dormer’s cracked voice pro- 
tested irritably, “You’ll give me the rheumatism with that 
open door, Lady Bell Trevor. There’s a draught blowing 
through the coach enough to winnow corn. We need not 
wait here any longer, since, as I suppose you know, 
neither you nor me has gained — we’re both thrown out, 
and we can get nothing now for our payment and pains. 
But we may have better luck another time. I’ve a share 
in the Westminster, and another ticket in the next Museum 
lottery. They can’t all come to grief? ” she said anxiously. 

Mrs. Dormer got no answer, and she proceeded to take 
some comfort from the reflection, “ Lady Bell’s wits are to 
seek — no use to prick numbers with her. She’ll come to 
grief to a certainty, if she take on so for a' sea-water dog 
of a fellow, rude and gruff. I’ll warrant him. Ah, those 
widows, those widows ! they’ve not had their firings of 
men. The widows will have more of the men, and the 
more masterful they are, the better the silly, weak fools are 
pleased with their bargain to begin with. Manly, forsooth I 
manly to snub a fine woman, turn a cold shoulder on her, 
have her running after the gallant fellow and laying the hair 
of her head beneath his feet, till the tide turn.” 

When Lady Bell descended from the coach, and walked 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 


371 

into tlie lodgings in the Haymarket, she looked so small, 
poor, and forlorn, such a contrast to the beaming girl of the 
morning, that Mrs. Snndon felt called upon to meet her friend 
with loud remonstrances. “ I told you that you would do 
yourself up, Bell ; you were in a most absurd key this morn- 
ing, after your last night’s disorder. You were wound up to 
a pitch at which you must break down.” 

‘'So I was. Sunny,” Lady Bell in her collapse acknow- 
ledged faintly, “ and now I am weary to death. Let me lie 
down, away from the light, and forget myself and all the 
world.” 

She seemed to see it all in one consuming lightning flash, 
which licked up love, truth, life itself. Harry Fane did not 
wish to acknowledge her as his wife, and how could she claim 
him for her husband against his will ? 

He cast her from him, as men and women were sometimes 
renounced, when there was treachery in these secret marriage 
vows. She had no friend qualified to call him to account, 
and to what purpose would it be when — not his power, but 
his desire to deny her, was the “damning fact” to her con- 
sciousness ? 

Why he had proved false, and that on so short a trial of 
absence, or if he had deceived her from the beginning, she 
could not tell. 

He had detested and despised the gay world, with its fine 
ladies. It looked almost to Lady Bell’s bewilderment as if 
he had sought savagely to humble her in the light of the 
representative of her class. He had humbled in the dust 
the birth, breeding, and few charms of which she had been 
vain, but which, when humbled, might appear paltry and 
mawkish in the eyes of a worldly and wicked man. She had 
not sufficient fortune to bribe him to behave to her with the 
barest honour of an officer and gentleman, supposing in that 
case the poor purchase had been worth the purchase money. 


CHAPTEE LI. 


BEAHING one’s OWN AND ONE’s NEIGHBOUR’S BURDENS. 

QUOH an awakening — awful and heartrending as it ever is, 
^ and must be to a woman — was not peculiar to Lady Bell. 
She was not the first, nor would she he the last woman to 
make a fatal mistake, and squander the treasures of a life at 
one rash venture. 

Lady Bell was the very woman to call to mind that bitter 
hut wholesome consolation, and to act upon it. Even as a 
child she had hidden her wounds, and tried to go on her way, 
with such a child’s half-comical, hut far more pathetic re- 
serve and dignity. 

Much more as a woman betrayed and bereft. Lady Bell 
rose up like the great Eastern King after the stroke had 
fallen, when he washed his face, anointed his head, ate and 
drank, and went in and out before his people. 

Lady Bell came tripping down the morning after she had 
seen Captain Pane again, when he had met her as a stranger 
and an enemy, and left her ten times worse than a widow. 
She ate her breakfast with Sunny, and was resolute in turning 
all observation from her own wan face and deficient appetite. 

She entered fully into all the plans and arrangements for 
the day. She was ready then and afterwards^ for her little 
joke with Master Charles. She would die sooner than make 
a sign of the misery which had overtaken her. 


BURDENS. 


373 

She was not a very prond woman either, or very sensible 
of wrong-doing and the shame which was its portion ; rather, 
she was delicate-minded and high-hearted. It was not so 
much that she would never submit to be pitied — not to say 
blamed — as that she believed that all the world was to be 
pitied more or less, and she did not see what she had to do in 
monopolising a great share of the world’s pity. 

Some writers will have it that in life it goes in this fashion. 
Women disguising their troubles are poor little household 
hypocrites, with a petty regard for keeping up appearances 
and hoodwinking their neighbours. The hj^pocrisy balances 
and lightens the misery, which can never be tremendous. In 
the faculty of simple endurance, of keeping their pain to 
themselves, and making a profession of sympathy with the 
pleasure of others, women are greater than men, but that 
only by a half-contemptible feigning and shamming ; while 
women are less than men in the capacity of honest, unmiti- 
gated suffering. 

It may be so ; but the man or the woman who weai’s his 
or her heart upon the sleeve that friends may smart and burn 
in unison with its gashes and bruises, as well as that daws 
may peck at it, is wanting in true generosity and true deli- 
cacy, is a coward, an egotist, and most likely a fool. 

Lady Bell would not, for all that remained to her in the 
world, have increased by a reflection of her anguish, the 
burden of cares of their own which Mrs. Sundon and Master 
Charles must have, sooner or later, to bear. It was her one 
comfort, that they were not acquainted with a jot or tittle of 
her dreadful misfortune, and she trusted to be able to keep 
them in happy ignorance. For this end, no sacrifice of mere 
feeling and inclination would be too much. 

True, Lady Bell did not care very much what became of 
her. She felt morally stunned, sick, and dizzy — like a per- 
son who, having fallen over a precipice, and escaped death, 


374 


LADY BELL. 


creeps feebly and half blindly along the rocky waste where he 
finds himself. 

She had a dawning sense of retribution — a conviction that 
she had made the thorny bed on which she was forced to lie, 
and have her delicate flesh pierced and torn at every move- 
ment. Bepentance was beginning to work ; still that was no 
reason why Mrs. Sundon and Master Charles, who had to 
fight alone their own temptations and tribulations, were to 
be punished for Lady Bell’s sins, as well as her sorrows, all 
as a reward for their friendship. 

She might have made them partakers of her happy, 
triumphant secret (woe’s me ! what a transformation it had 
undergone, when that which Lady Bell had conceived to be 
her safeguard and glory had proved her ruin and disgrace) ; 
but now, though she were to pine, and sink under her load, 
she would die silent. 

Her pride was up in arms along with her magnanimity. 
What! tell even Sunny that she. Lady Bell, had been so 
defrauded and betra^^ed ; be lamented over, if not condemned 
and scorned ; be urged, and constrained to wrest her poor 
rights from the man whom she had so worshipped, that it 
seemed rending her very nature in twain to dethrone and 
degrade him — not in the eyes of the world, but in her solitary 
estimation. 

Never, never. Captain Pane should go scatheless and free, 
for Lady Bell, to perpetrate new barbarities under the guise 
of blunt frankness and high-minded philosophy. 

Mrs Sundon and Master Charles were blinded. Doubtless 
their eyes, like the rest of our eyes, would have been sharper 
if they had not been turned in upon and held fast by their 
Dwn affairs. 

Master Charles was in anticipation of the orders to follow 
ihe main body of his regiment to America, where the war 
was still raging with unabated fury. 


BURDENS. 


375 


Tliougli General Lee was said to Lave been taken prisoner, 
and Sir Guy Carleton to have been victorious in defending 
Canada against Arnold and Montgomery, the rebels still 
made such head, that, unless Mr. M^ashington finally defeated 
Lord Cornwallis — which Master Charles could not bring him- 
self to believe — there was no prospect of the war’s drawing 
to a conclusion. 

Master Charles’s heart had been set on seeing service. In 
addition to a high-spirited young man’s love of adventure 
and desire for distinction, Master Charles had taken up arms, 
not as the makeshift occupation of a man of established rank 
and wealth, but as the serious profession in which he, Charles 
Kingscote, was to strive to retrieve the wasted fortunes of his 
family, and to make for himself a fresh name and position. 

Master Charles’s career as a soldier was, as far as man 
could tell, his single opportunity of justifying the good offices 
of his friends and neighbours, and rising permanently from 
obscurity. The sooner, therefore, that Master Charles went 

a-campaigning,” as his sister called it, the better for him, 
in all respects. 

Yet the young man’s heart began to be divided and dis- 
tracted, like Lady Bell’s natui’e. There were lights in which 
he was loth to go off to the wars at this time, of all other, to 
lose much that he prized, not only with terribly little certainty 
of finding it again, but with the suspicion springing up and 
gaining ground upon him, that he was leaving his friends in 
dubious case. 

But it was for Mrs. Sundon that Master Charles’s heart was 
beginning to ache with care. 

Both these young women had opened a new world to 
Master Charles; both had been like sisters to him. But 
while Lady Bell had at one time, in the early days of their 
intercourse, half affronted him and given him cause for blame 
and forbearance, she had not in the end been more to him 


LADY BELL. 


376 

titan a kind-hearted, gay, and gifted young sister, with whom 
he had played, and of whom he was proud. 

Mrs. Sundon had risen up before the lad as a goddess, 
saint, and martyr. She was more beautiful than Lady Bell, 
wiser, wittier, even as Mrs. Sundon had been in her time 
more cruelly tried. 

And oh ! Mrs. Sundon was far more condescending, for had 
she not stepped into the breach in order to arrest a lout and 
fool of a fellow who was stumbling headlong down the first 
steps to ruin? She had nobly and sweetly offered to lay 
bare her own sacred sorrows, for the purpose of warning a 
rash and stupid young sinner, who ought not to have needed 
warning. 

Master Charles had been at the age when young men 
prefer goddesses to women, and queens to beggar-maids. 
Before he had time to grow older, the mischief was done in a 
heart which was as true as it was tender. He hardly required 
to recognise, as he now recognised, in his serene goddess a 
yearning woman, in his queen a subtle suppliant, in order 
to continue to be her sworn and devoted servant. 

Being as true and modest, this plain young country gentle- 
man, for a man, as she was for a woman — knowing Mrs. 
Sundon to be the blameless wife of a wretched lost man — 
Master Charles never, in his inmost heart, called her by any 
nearer and dearer name than that of his patron saint, removed 
from him as heaven is from earth, his guiding star, far above 
him, his lady, to whom he could not be more than the humble, 
faithful squire which she accounted him, and permitted him 
to be. 

Master Charles was content, he said bravely and steadfastly 
to himself, with these titles of honour. To have dreamt of 
any other titles would have been to inflict on Mrs. Sundon a 
gross insult, against which, as dealt by another, he would 
have been the first to fire up in rage and disgust. 


BURDENS. 377 

Thus Master Charles stifled and trampled down passion, 
not even allowing it spiritual breath, or voice, as every man 
and woman — be they young or be they old, or be they simple 
as wayfaring men — can, if they will, with Christ in heaven 
above^ them, resist every devil of unlawful desire till it flee 
from them. 

But such resistance, with its strong ceaseless guard, was 
rapidly converting Master Charles’s pleasant, thoughtless 
boyishness into what was more honourable, if less light- 
hearted, until thoughtful manhood was stamping his brow 
with gravity, and slowing his step. 

His playfellow. Lady BeU, actually began to view him 
with serious respect, as well as affection, and to stand a little 
in awe of him. When he was • cross now — an accident of 
rarer occurrence than the pettishness of which he had been 
guilty when he was an idle, restless lad, but even as his 
crossness had a deeper root in real provocation, so it was 
more formidable — Lady Bell ceased to set herself to torment 
him, even if she had still had the heart for the sport, and 
learnt to feel for him, and let him alone. 


CHAPTEE m. 


MRS. SUNDON’s pursuit OP PLEASURE. 

T AEY BELL’S vague suspicions Lad not been necessary for 
^ Master Charles to see for himself, soon after the friends 
were settled in London, that much was changed with Mrs. 
Sundon. 

It was not an outward and conventional change, simply or 
principally, and it was certainly not a change in her kindness 
to him. Yet her habits, her state of mind, the degree and 
nature of her regard for her friends had each sustained 
alteration and modification. And all this weighed on 
Master Charles’s mind, producing discomfiture and appre- 
hension. 

Master Charles’s faith in his lady was not shattered, like 
Lady Bell’s in her best of men ; it was not even tarnished. 
It was such, that he could, as he had told Lady Bell, trust 
Mrs. Sundon, whatever were the appearances ; but it vexed 
and mortified him that appearances were against her, and 
that she should subject herself to scandal and slander. 

In the near prospect of quitting Mrs. Sundon and Lady 
Bell, and the very country which contained them — of no 
longer being at hand to befriend them for many months at 
least, with the conviction that something was wrong in Mrs. 
Sundon’ s life, while he had not even her confidence in what 
was wronir. the sworn chamuion stao’O'erod under the wei^^ht 


PURSUIT OF PLEASURE. 


379 


of uneasiness and perplexity wliicli might of itself have over- 
come a mature man. 

Why should Mrs. Sundon, with L'ady Bell sure to he 
following in her wake, have become reckless in the pursuit of 
pleasure ? Why should the two ladies appear, like wander- 
ing stars of the first magnitude, in order to be crowded round 
and stared at among the second-rate company at Marylebone 
Gardens and Bagnigge Wells ? There was no occasion for 
the condescension here, as there had been for the ladies of 
Summerhill’s countenance of neighbourly merrjTnakings at 
Lumley, where Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell had been well 
known and looked up to. 

It was a very different question when there was no neigh- 
bourly obligation, to speak of, and when the reasons for this 
promenade and that cricket match and its ball, wdiich the 
ladies chose to patronise, were no better reasons than those 
of thrusting into higher society the promoters — notoriously 
vulgar, grasping upstarts, old candle-makers, or fraudulent 
brokers — with their bouncing, bridling wives and daughters. 

It was in such company that one might meet in flocks 
ladies and gentlemen of the shadiest antecedents, received 
solely because, however stained and bemired, the individuals 
had been ladies and gentlemen, and were nearly the only 
representatives of the class that frequented these quarters. 

Master Charles had guessed that Lady Sundon, of Sundon 
Green, with whom Lady Bell had lived during her earlier 
sojourn in town, was an easy-going dame ; but she had been 
more careful in the company which she kept, according to 
Lady Bell’s conversation. 

Mrs. Sundon constantly appointed Master Charles to attend 
her and Lady Bell in public, and as constantly gave him for 
a partner to Lady Bell, to stroll, dance, sit, and sup with, 
until the couple became conspicuously inseparable. 

In the meantime Mi’s. Sundon gratified the whim of the 


380 


LADY BELL. 


moment. She had a wide circle of acquaintance, and she 
would flit from this person to that, and greet and converse 
with a variety of men and women, down to threadbare par- 
sons and out-at-elbows half-pay officers. 

Lady Bell, not to say Master Charles, knew none of these 
strangers ; but Mrs. Sundon, while jealous of any other and 
more suitable intruder into their party, was careless in per- 
mitting these shabby-genteel satellites to hang about and 
attach themselves to her. 

Mrs. Sundon was mistress of the situation, such as it was, 
and perfectly independent of control. Those relations whom 
she had alienated in the past by her marriage with Gregory 
Sundon, were dead or scattered abroad. 

Latterly, Lady Bell had appeared content to do Mrs. 
Sundon’s bidding with even laborious fidelity, and without a 
single objection or ‘murmur. 

Along with Mrs. Sundon’s refusal of, and impatience with 
interference, her abstraction and pre-occupation, amounting 
to flurry — the reverse of her old calmness — were increasing 
upon her, till they prevented her from being clearly aware of 
the surprise or disapproval of her companions. 

There was nothing to be done, and only this to be said — 
that Mrs. Sundon was granting license to aU the scandal- 
mongers in toT^n to join in a proclamation which caused the 
blood of one lad, who knew better than all the rest of the 
world put together, to boil. Madam Sundon had become 
infatuated, or she had not been so wise and good, after all ! 
Poor Greg Sundon had doubtless had his trials, of which he 
had said nothing while the union lasted. 

Madam Sundon was sharing the common weakness, and 
coming down to the easy level of her neighbours ; only she 
was making a prodigious crash, and a greater mess than 
most people made, because she had been so furiously sage 
and virtuous in her day. 


PURSUIT OF PLEASURE. 


381 

After having been counted a miracle of ill-bestowed excel- 
lence and discretion at nineteen and twenty, Mrs. Sundon 
had fallen through her part, and was as foolish and impru- 
dent as a woman could be, before she was three years older. 

. Mrs. Sundon was leading the last winter’s beauty. Lady 
Bell Trevor — a little conceited chatterbox and coquet, who 
had gone in, too, for sense and domesticity, for country life, 
and all that sort of thing — a sorry dance. The sole resource 
for Lady Bell would be that young man from the country, 
that raw ensign, whom the two fine ladies kept in leading- 
strings, dangling at their tails. He might break the fall of 
the beauty and toast, by consenting to mend her damaged 
reputation, carrying it away to have change of air among the 
Cherokees and the Pequods. 

There was one natural question that Master Charles was for 
ever putting to himself, in all its branches — could Mrs. Sun- 
don still retain an association with Gregory Sundon, banished 
by his own deed, through some of his old allies and accom- 
plices ? Was she even now holding communication with them ? 
Was it they who, preying upon her and bringing her into 
trouble, rendered her regardless of her own interest and that 
of others ? 

To concede such a possibility, which the heartless world 
had forgotten, was also utterly repugnant to Master Charles. 
To continue to link the fortunes of the noble woman whom 
he reverenced and adored, with those of the miserable man 
who had forfeited his claim to every honest man and woman’s 
regard, was in itself, to Master Charles’s mind, to do dis- 
credit to his mistress, and be disloyal to her. Master Charles 
had heard how keenly Mrs. Sundon had resented her hus- 
band’s infidelity and falsehood at the time that he sinned 
against her ; how relentlessly, in outraged love and truth, for 
her child’s sake as well as for her own, she had severed the 
bond at once and for ever between her and Gregory Sundon. 


38 . 


LADY BELL. 


To suppose that Mrs. Sundon had consented to renew inter- 
course, with her husband by the double humiliation of go- 
betweens, was to suppose her guilty of the utmost inconsis- 
tency, while laying down her dignity, her self-respect, and 
her sense, while paltering with her own conscience, and dally- 
ing with temptation. In believing that. Master Charles must 
believe her guilty of weakness and fickleness, as dishonour- 
ing to her as it was incredible to him. 

King George was going to hold a review on Clapham 
Condon of troops bound for America, and among the soldiers 
was Master Charles’s contingent. 

A great gathering of Londoners of every degree would go 
out to indulge their propensity for seeing sights, and to have 
an easy taste of the pomp of glorious war. 

Mrs. Sundon proposed to follow the multitude, and Lady 
Bell agreed to the proposal, as she would have agreed in 
those dim, crowded, haunted days, to attempt to ascend to the 
moon in a balloon, or to start at a moment’s notice for Tim- 
buctoo, taking the source of the Niger in the way, had either 
of these expeditions been suggested to her. 

The presence of his fair friends at the review would be 
flattering to Master Charles, and he longed in his secret 
soul to show off his marching and counter-marching, wheel- 
ing and saluting before such bright eyes. But he was sufB. 
ciently disinterested to consider that he could not afford Mrs. 
Sundon and Lady Bell his attendance on this occasion. 

It had come to this, that Master Charles recognised, with 
sad ground for being disconcerted and disturbed on his 
friends’ account, that somehow Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell 
were wilfully and wantonly cutting themselves off from the 
companionship of their equals. 

The ladies could command an ample train of followers any 
day, but that train was ceasing to include ladies like them- 
selves, and friends faithful as Master Charles. 


PURSUIT OF PLEASURE. 


383 


Master Charles ventured for the first time to make some 
awkward opposition to Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell’s showing 
themselves at this public place. 

A review was tiresome work to onlookers, especially to 
ladies, Master Charles said. This would be nothing but 
shifting clouds of dust and moving bits of red cloth, intoler- 
able in such weather, with all the tag-rag and bobtail of 
London looking on. He was to march to the ground with 
his men, and he might have to return as he had come. If 
he might make so bold as to advise, Mrs. Sundon and Lady 
Bell had better stay at home. 

Mrs. Sundon’s indignation blazed up in a moment, yet 
Master Charles had known her the most even-tempered and 
reasonable of women. 

“What, sir, are we to be drilled like your soldiers, and 
that by a greybeard of an ofdcer ? Look, Bell, and teU me 
if his beard has sprouted during the night. I think that 
we have been only too good to you. If there has been any 
impropriety going, it has been in our allowing you to dance 
attendance upon us everywhere ; so that we are not so much 
the worse as you, in your conceit, suppose, for the lack of 
you during one day.” 

“Mrs. Sundon,” implored Master Charles, “you mistake 
my meaning.” 

But she paid no heed to him. “ A widow, let her be ever 
so charming, and a faded humdrum matron — a mother to 
boot! Ah, my Caro,” — Mrs. Sundon turned away clasping 
her hands, till she wrung them hard, — “ when shall I see 
you again ? To think your mother is to be insulted 1 ” 

“On my life, madam — ” cried Master Charles in despe- 
ration. 

“ And all because we were fit to dispense with a long lad of 
a subaltern walking after us,” Mrs. Sundon interrupted him 
ruthlessly. “I did not imagine that you were a sentinel 


384 


LADY BELL. 


standing guard on us, Master Charles,” she said more coolly, 
hut still alleging a liberty and an offence on his part. 

“Mrs. Sundon, I know that I have been shocking rude,” 
confessed the poor fellow, in the utmost confusion and dis- 
tress at her anger, fearing that he had gone too far, and 
done more harm than good, and that she would forbid him 
her house and presence next, and find herself alone in a 
dreary labyrinth; “I’ll promise never to offend so again.” 

“Oh, a truce to quarrelling; now you take matters too 
seriously,” said Mrs. Sundon, hastily nodding pardon to her 
humble servant as she left the room. 

“ Indeed, Master Charles, I think you had better repeat 
the offence,” commented Lady Bell, startled into an inde- 
pendent judgment. “We are going too fast, and seem to 
be forgetting what is due to ourselves. I don’t know what 
has come over us, or the world neither. But what does it 
signify ?” she wound up with a dismal sign. 


CHAPTEE Lm. 


THE REVIEW AT CLAPHAM — ^MRS. SUNDON^S INTRODTrOTION TC 
CAPTAIN PANE. 

^HE review was a very grand review, and had points of 
special interest. In addition to the King, the Duke of 
Wurtemhurg was there. Among the nobility were their 
Graces of Northumberland — not Duchess Anne, whom Lady 
Bell had heard haranguing the election mob from a window 
in Covent Garden, but Duchess Elizabeth, who, with her 
Duke, had given a pledge to the bloody civil war far away — 
for was not Earl Percy at that moment leading the British 
and Hessians among the sumacs and maples of Elat Bush ? 

But more attractive, and winning considerably more atten- 
tion than dukes — royal or noble, foreign or native — were the 
Indian chiefs who were then on a visit to England, and who, 
as allies of the English, were treated with marked respect by 
King George himself. 

The chiefs’ appearance was hybrid in the extreme on the 
occasion, for they wore their native dresses over English 
suits of clothes, and had ensigns’ breastplates, while they 
held hatchets in their hands, and displayed war paint on 
their faces. 

Before the review, the order had been given that officers 
and men should be dressed alike, with their hair arranged in 
the same fashion, while in the war, that they might not be dis- 
17 0 0 


386 


LADY BELL. 


tinguished from eacL. other by the American riflemen. One 
of the ceremonies of the day was the presentation of felt caps 
with black feathers, in common to all. 

But in many respects the review was much like other 
reviews a century later. The troops might be a little 
clumsier in their manoeuvi’es, and at once laxer and more 
rigid in their discipline ; but this was a field-day, and there 
was no such dispensation in dress and manners to men mean- 
ing work presently, as that afforded to the Guards in their 
renowned march to Finchley. 

The seasonable summer weather served to make the red- 
coats redder, and to reflect the red in the bluff faces above 
them. Even his Majesty, in full uniform, was crimson in the 
royal cheeks. Lady Bell, sitting with Mrs. Sundon on a 
stand, said the whole corps were like boiled lobsters. 

“Do you prefer blue jackets. Bell? ” Mrs. Sundon put it 
to her friend without any double meaning. 

“ Because they are like lobsters unboiled, and may change 
their colour — is that a reason for a preference. Sunny ? ” 
asked Lady Bell with apparent flippancy, while writhing 
under the simple question. 

There was a great deal of shouting and counter-shouting, 
of what looked to outsiders like performances nipped in the 
bud, and floundering failures, as the troops lumbered here 
and there. 

But the inspecting officers, who ought to have known, de- 
clared themselves satisfied, and the King added his good- 
natured words of praise before he retired into the welcome 
tent provided for the royal shelter and refreshment. 

An ample enough gathering of the wives and daughters of 
the officers under review kept Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell in 
countenance, in their grace shown to Master Charles, who 
had become coy. 

But after a word or two of greeting, Mrs. Sundon and Lady 


INTRODUCTION TO CAPTAIN FANE. 


387 

Bell fell apart from the mass of their kind, with the fatality 
which had lately beset the pair. Yet if their suspicious 
sisters had overheard the friends’ conversation, it would have 
been found to be on no more reprehensible person than Miss 
More, of Bristol, whom Mrs. Sundon had once met in a 
Clapham country house, and whom the place recalled to her 
mind for a moment, when Mrs. Sundon seized the opportunity 
to commend Miss More as a woman of the soundest, most 
enlightened understanding, to Lady Bell. 

Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell were the two handsomest, but 
not the most enviable women at the review. They were 
drawing to themselves an annoying amount of observation, 
and were frequently acosted with more freedom than was 
agreeable to the ladies, by slight acquaintances among the 
host of men congregated at what was a man’s spectacle. 

Even in these circumstances (and when they were scarcely 
done with talking of the excellent Miss More), Mrs. Sundon 
detached herself from Lady Bell, stepping aside a pace to 
take a particular message which a manservant had come up 
to deliver to Mrs. Sundon. Lady Bell could not identify the 
peach and grey livery, and she had an instinctive conscious- 
ness that she would never learn that message. 

As the assembled troops were broken up, a com];)any of 
dragoons came galloping in Lady Bell’s direction ; a panic 
overcame her, and in trying to get out of the horsemen’s 
way, she ran farther apart from Mrs. Sundon standing talking 
to the servant, and in front of the very hoofs which Lady 
Bell had sought to avoid. 

Lady Bell was stopped by a gentleman, who pulled her 
aside and let the dragoons clatter by. 

“I vow I did not know whom I had the honour to assist,” 
protested a voice cruel as death to Lady Bell- in its formality, 
and its disclaiming all connection with her or interest in her ; 
and there, under a naval officer’s blue coat and cocked hat. 


LADY BELL. 


388 

towered the figure and frowned the face of Harry Fane. 
“ Your friends, madam, are remiss in their care.” 

Lady Bell gave him no answer, and made no sign. She 
was ready to sink with fright and exhaustion, but she would 
sink before she would cling to the protection of the man 
who had sworn to protect her. 

Mrs. Sundon came up. ‘‘Why, Bell, what made you 
scuttle into mischief?” She was reproaching her friend 
lightly, since no harm was done. “Master Charles is to 
attend us home. He has just come up, and it seems he is not 
to march back with his men. IVe been telling him that he 
sets his felt cap and black feathers pretty well, and he is gone 
to see after the carriage. Sir, I have to thank j’-ou that this 
lady was not overridden, and left with the only broken bones 
on the field. Present your friend, Bell, whether he be an 
old friend or a new acquaintance,” Mrs. Sundon ended, look- 
ing inquisitively at the ungracious man who, after coming to 
Lady Bell’s help, was regarding her so stiffly and coldly. 

“I knew a little of the gentleman ages ago,” answered 
Lady Bell huskily, in a voice that was strange to her own 
ears, and without any distinct consciousness that she was not 
speaking the truth. 

Lady Bell had met Captain Fane for the first time six 
months since, and in the interval she had bound herself to 
him by the most solemn vow. 

Yet, so far as her feelings at that moment were concerned, 
she might have known him in a former, state of existence ; 
and she had lived to be cut off from him as the living are cut 
off from the dead. Therefore she was able to say his name 
with a painful, mechanical effort, like a person compelled to 
speak by the will of another. 

“Captain Fane, Mrs. Sundon,” said Lady Bell with dry 
throat and parched lips, but without faltering. 

“ Ah ! Captain Fane. I daresay I have heard you mention 


INTRODUCTION TO CAPTAIN FANE. 


389 

tlie name,” observed Mrs. Sundon with carelessness, as she 
curtseyed. ‘‘We shall dispense with troubling the gentle- 
man farther, shan’t we. Bell ? ” 

“Certainly,” assented Lady BeU, in the same forced and 
distant manner. 

“I cannot leave women to be trampled under horses’ feet, 
or assailed by the scum of a review ground,’’ said Harry 
Fane sullenly. 

“Oh, for that matter, be on no ceremony, sir,” cried Mrs. 
Sundon superciliously; “yonder is our carriage awaiting us, 
and our friend coming to lead us to it.” 

At these words he walked away, raising his hat more as a 
trick of custom, than as a deliberate act of leave-taking. 

“What a sea hedgehog!” exclaimed Mrs. Sundon indig- 
nantly. “ I thought that sort of person had died out of the 
service. And he looked lite a gentleman, too, and hardly in 
his prime 1 But it is clear he hates us poor women like poison, 
and thinks us as much out of place at a review as if we had 
taken possession of his horrid quarter-deck. A sort of fellow 
that no woman of spirit could put up with for five minutes.” 

“No, Sunny,” repKed Lady Bell absently. 

“No, we don’t want him,” Mrs. Sundon continued to con- 
gratulate herself and her friend on Captain Fane’s abrupt 
dismissal. “ To bristle up on the plea of being compelled to 
see us to a place of safety, T^le he caused us to suffer from 
his prickles all the way, and was prepared to stick them into 
any unlucky wight who might dare to approach us I I have 
known something in my day of these rough buccaneers, the 
old sea admirals, and how they despised the race of women to 
whom the mothers that bore them belonged. I was wrong 
in supposing that such sailors had become extinct ; at least, 
they have left their sons, smoothed down a little in keeping 
with the time, to maintain the breed. Come, Bell, you 
are not minding me ; you have not recovered from your 


390 


LADY BELL. 


flight, or you are so silly as to pay heed to a snarling 
booby.” 

Lady Bell was thinking that surely she remembered Harry 
Fane, and that not many months ago, different. 

Had hate to her and his galling sense of the tie which 
existed between them, changed him so much for the worse ? 

Caustic he had been, and a little severe perhaps, as young 
men who hold a high standard are apt to be ; but how often 
his cousin, Lady Sundon, had spoken of him as “ that good 
fellow Harry how well-disposed and even indulgent, in spite 
of his growls, he had always shown himself to Sir Peter, Lady 
Sundon, and their daughters ! These friends of old standing 
had trusted in Harry Fane’s kindness. How willing he 
had been to advise and raise Lady Bell’s tastes and pursuits, 
when he could have hardly hoped to profit by the raising ! 
How earnest he had been in the rnidst of his occasional gruff- 
ness for the general good ! Lady Bell pondered the lament- 
able contradiction wearily, and forgot for a moment to consider 
corresponding contradictions. 

She herself had been brought very near to denying Harry 
Fane’s acquaintance to his face. She had allowed Mrs. 
Sundon to decline his attendance, and openly and ostenta- 
tiously to substitute that of another man, who had not Harry 
Fane’s right to escort them. She had let Harry Fane go 
again without the least hint of giving or getting an address 
for the purpose of entering into communication and explana- 
tion with him. 


CHAPTEE LIV. 


THE TEIAL OP ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF ErNrOSTOH. 

^HEEE was to be a show in London wbicb was fit to de- 
tain tbe great world from Brigbtbelmstone an(? Tunbridge. 
It was a spectacle which could only occur once in a generation, 
if so often, and which concerned the quality closely. 

The excitement and intrigues to get places to witness the 
sight were as great as those felt and employed on the occasion 
of a coronation, and men and women went in like manner to 
sit for many hours in full dress, and listen, if not to anthems 
and prayers, to speeches. 

The men who were not in robes of office, wore uniform, 
court suits, stars, and ribands. The women were in white 
satin, and sky-blue and crimson velvet, though they were 
under the necessity of abstaining from their high plumes, 
because these obstructed the view. 

The view was of a solitary woman, with her attendants, in 
mourning, standing as a prisoner at the bar of the House of 
Peers. In order to watch her and hea'r her fate, the play and 
the lotteries wero abandoned. What spectacle or what cast of 
the dice could equal that of Elizabeth, Duchess of Kingston, 
tried before her peers on a charge of bigamy, with the straw- 
berry-leaves and the great Kingston estates on the one hand, 
and on the other ignominy, impoverishment, being branded 
in the hand by the executioner’s iron as a common felon ? 


39 « 


LADY BELL. 


Into that hand King George II. had once dropped a fairing, 
when gaUanf king and envied maid of honour, with a whole 
court, had been playing the rustics, not unsuitably so far as 
coarseness of mind and manners beneath the tissues and 
brocades, went, — at a village fair. 

There was a belle, a toast, and a coquette of the first water, 
who had lorded it in her heauU de didble for her short day, 
whose red and white flesh and sparkling eyes, her airs, vices, 
and follies, had ruled shamefully in London, at Bath, and 
latterly had been presented with their patent of nobility 
at foreign courts, in order to bring England still farther into 
evil repute. 

There was the ‘‘ Lady Kitty Crocodile” of Foote’s burlesque, 
on which she had got the Lord Chamberlain to put an interdict ; 

the modern Moll Flanders ” of drawing-room talk and letter- 
writing, which were beyond the Lord Chamberlain’s ban. 

She had few friends and one deadly enemy, ten times more 
deadly than any “Meadows” of all the lawful heirs of the 
late Duke of Kingston. 

That enemy was the gross and brutal bully the Earl of 
Bristol, to whom in a moment of weakness, half a lifetime 
previously, Elizabeth Chudleigh had placed herself in sub- 
jection. He had dogged her footsteps ever since, not in love, 
but hate, helped to blast her reputation by the foulest accu- 
sations, and was now in league with her declared foes to 
accomplish her ruin, and to trumpet her disgrace as far as 
her infamous fame. 

The Duchess of Kingston had carried that fame to Home, 
where she had sought as a great English “Miladi,” rich and 
powerful like a princess, with the wrecks of her imperial 
beauty, and the tradition of having had the world at her feet, 
to make a glorious penitent, worthy of a council of popes and 
cardinals. 

But the penitent was restless, and she had borne her name 


THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON. 


393 


and tlie rumour of her dee^s still farther — to St. Petersburg, 
where she had become a congenial associate of the great 
northern she-bear. 

Lady Bell was wild to see the trial, as were many modest 
women of the London of her day. But to few of these 
women could the trial have had the ghastly fascination which 
it held for Lady Bell. Was it not her own story reproduced 
and acted out to its bitter end? In Ehzabeth Chudleigh 
could not Lady Bell see and shudder at what she herself 
might become ? 

In the Admiral, Lord Bristol, who had been simple 
Lieutenant Hervey when he had wedded yoxmg Miss Chud- 
leigh down in the country, could Lady Bell fail to recognise 
Captain Fane ? • 

Ah! yes, Harry Fane might be lost to her for ever, — 
might disown her for some reason of his own unknown to 
her, — might kill her by forsaking her without a word ; but 
she would never believe that his future contained the loath- 
some wickedness and debasement which foamed out its mire 
and dirt, and trafficked in its cwn infamy with Augustus, 
Earl of Bristol. 

Westminster Hall was crowded for four days with the 
cream of good company. Peers and peeresses filled the 
interior, from the queen’s box to the farthest back bench. 

The biggest wigs of lawyers, in addition to the authorities 
engaged by the two sides in the case, thronged to hear the 
contest. 

Nothing had been seen or heard like this trial, every one 
who was there said, since the Jacobite trial of Lords Kilmar- 
nock and Balmerino, for the trials of Lord Byron and Earl 
Ferrars, which came between, were here fairly eclipsed. 

Eating and drinking and sleeping ceased to be thought 
of, when lazy men and delicate women faced the hooting, 
groaning populace without, pushed theii’ way to seats by 
17 * 


394 


LADY BELL. 


right of favour as early as seven o’clock in the morning, and 
were still to be found in their places fasting and ready to 
drop, but alert and curious to the last, at seven o’clock at 
night. 

Lady Bell was at her post all the four days, so engrossed 
by the principal performers that she could hardly spare 
attention for the superb company. 

Only now and then, at any crisis in the examination. Lady 
Bell cast a frightened, searching look around her to try if 
she could detect another spectator and listener, who ought to 
be as impressed as herself. 

But when every foot of ground had its owner, and the 
lobbies and passages were crammed till they presented one 
living mass, it was almost impossible to distinguish indi- 
viduals. 

Lady Bell drew a long breath when she saw the miserable 
heroine of the day, followed by her attendant women, walk in 
under the custody of a gentleman of the black rod. She was 
a tall woman, large in every way, wearing the deep black of 
a professed widow, which enhanced the heavy pallor of her 
complexion, unrelieved on this occasion by rouge. She 
retained hardly a trace of the beauty which had once turned 
so many heads. She curtseyed quietly to her peers and 
judges, and conducted herself ‘‘for once,” people said, with 
decent reticence, though there was no absence of the bold- 
ness, which had grown brazen. She might be a modern 
“ Moll Flanders ” and a fair actress of a certain sort ; she 
was certainly not so honest a woman as either Nan Clarges 
or Lavinia Fenton, who had both worn the strawberry -leaves 
before her. 

The pseudo Duchess of Kingston read her own plea of 
“ not guilty,” prolonging it into a daring casuistic speech 
of some length that had been put into her mouth. In her 
speech she declined to come to particulars, and only main- 


THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON. 


395 

tained tlie warrant for lier marriage with the Duke of King- 
ston in the sentence of freedom to marry procured by her 
own evidence on oath, from the ecclesiastical council. 

The Duchess sat down. The Attorney-General and the 
Solicitor-General, Harris, Dunning, Calvert, Mansfield, the 
Lord Chief Justice de Grey took up the tale and argued its 
merits learnedly for two days. 

When the peers had arrived at the point of not knowing 
whether the head or the tail of the case was uppermost, or 
indeed which was the head and which the tail, what the 
duchess or countess had done, and what an ecclesiastical 
court could do and could not do, the witnesses were called. 

Lady Bell heard all the witnesses with itching, ringing 
ears, from the elderly waiting-maid who was only too eager 
to deliver her destructive testimony, and who had to confess 
that she was bought over by the enemy, to the confidential 
friend among the peers who stood out like a Quixote on his 
privileges as a man of honour and gentleman to be absolved 
from repeating a private conversation, which, when he was 
compelled to repeat it, proved to be nothing to the purpose. 

Lady Bell leant her head on her hand and listened with 
a wearj throb of recognition to many of the details. She 
heard of the short acquaintance which had ripened rankly 
into marriage. She was told of the ceremony celebrated just 
before the bridegroom joined his ship to sail for the East 
Indies. She had the details of the humble country church, 
where the hurried wedding took place before as small a 
company as possible. 

Indeed, Miss Chudleigh’s and Mr. Hervey’s marriage had 
been literally a dark deed, for the time chosen for its cele- 
bration had been night, with the sole light that of a candle 
stuck in a gentleman’s hat. In her quaking and revolt at 
the familiar particulars. Lady Bell gave a little hysterica] 
giggle at that ridiculous episode. 


LADY BELL. 


396 

The foolish revisiting of the scene of the marriage, and the 
tearing of the leaf in the parish register by the violent woman 
who was to profit by the unlawful act, were finally set forth. 
(Had any erasure or abstraction been attempted in or from 
the parish register at Islington, or were such acts of effron- 
tery and recklessness always left for the woman to commit, 
Lady Bell wondered dully ?) 

At last the long four days were over. The Duchess, or 
the criminal, had again risen to read out her defence in her 
undaunted, measured tones, lasting for three-quarters of an 
hour. If she had been culpable, she pled, who was to 
blame for the culpability ? Who but the members of the 
ecclesiastical court (before which she had sworn that she had 
not married Lieutenant Hervey) ! In accordance with the 
sentence of that court the unoffending Duchess had been, 
as she declared boldly, ‘‘beguiled by false lights hung out 
to allure the ignorant into paths of destruction.” 

The Lord High Steward put the vote of guilty or not 
guilty to each peer in turn. The votes were counted, and 
amidst a strain of expectation and a silence which could be 
felt, ^ unbroken by a rustle or whisper in the. great crowded 
hall, the Lord High Steward pronounced the just sentence of 
“guilty.” 

Elizabeth Hervey, no longer Duchess of Kingston, but 
Countess of Bristol, neither screamed nor fainted; but be- 
fore the shock of the sentence had subsided to any other 
person present, rose nimbly, and glibly and unblushingly 
claimed what still remained to her, a peeress’s privilege of 
exemption from the corporal punishment in the brand of the 
crime on the right hand of the Countess of Bristol. 

While the judges wrangled anew over the fresh question 
whether the favour belonged to peers alone, or could be ex- 
tended to peeresses, and the worn-out audience interchanged 
exclamations and comments, another woman asserted her 


THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON. 


397 


right to a woman’s weakness, by falling down in a dead faint 
on the floor of the Hall. 

“A lady swooned,” was an announcement which had been 
so common and sounded so natural in the circumstances, that 
it excited little commotion beyond the inevitable forcing of a 
way by which the senseless woman could be carried out to 
freer air and space, in order to be restored to life. 

The light, slender flgure in the general white satin dress of 
the younger ladies, had been tacked on, as it were, to a large 
party, to which she did not belong particularly, and had been 
a somewhat isolated and solitary spectatress and auditress 
during the whole of the days’ proceedings. Accordingly, 
there was nobody near who was so keenly interested as to 
fall into a flt of consternation at her sudden indisposition. 

This was a lady who had never been missing from her 
corner since the trial began. She had rashly exposed herself to 
fatigue which the strongest man could with difficulty sustain. 
There was no wonder that her strength gave way in the end. 

“The lady in the corner,” while she sought a secluded 
position at the trial, was necessarily known to many people 
present, amongst them to one gentleman who had been 
leaning against the nearest doorway, and who simply 
moved aside to permit her exit, and to a group of gentle- 
men beyond him, who, less reticent, proclaimed the sufferer’s 
identity. 

“ The frolicsome widow, without her gossip, the wife of 
Bath,” remarked the leader of the group; “the female 
Damon minus the female Pythias. Behold the result ! One 
charming sinner can’t stand alone, but is knocked down 
with a feather. What special sympathy with Moll Flanders’s 
past, present, or prospective, has turned my Lady Bell so 
white about the gills? There was word of some obscure 
kinsman, but that was so long ago that, gad, she may have 
gone in for half-a-dozen husbands since then.” 


CHAPTEE LY. 


AN AFTERNOON IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. 

T ONDON was in the white heat of July. So much of the 
world as then went out of town for more than John 
Gilpin’s day, had betaken itself to country quarters, though 
these were thought far enough off in the villages of Twicken- 
ham, Eichmond, Hackney, or Croydon. 

But Mrs. Sundon and Lady Bell stayed on in their baked 
and burned-up lodgings in the Haymarket, as if the women 
were become impervious to thick dust, sultry air, and brood- 
ing skies. 

Yet these were the very women who had learnt to love 
well green fields, fiowery lawns, blossoming or fruit-laden 
orchards, the first song of the thrush, the last note of the 
robin. A greedy attraction overpowered the innocent, rural 
delights, and a tremendous misfortune had crushed the desire 
for them, with all other desires, out of these sensitive hearts. 

In the absence of “ society,” and the knowledge that his 
days with his friends in England were numbered — for the 
transport with the contingent of Master Charles’s regiment 
was to sail in a week — the two poor women and their' friend 
clung to each other more fondly and wistfully than ever. 

Master Charles went with the ladies one fine afternoon to 
walk in Kensington Gardens, when for the last time Mrs. 
Sundon withdrew from her companions, and turned aside to 


KENSINGTON GARDENS. 


399 


sit down on a bonch. by a wretcbed-looking woman carrying 
a sick child in rags, and to enter into engrossing conversa- 
tion with her. 

Mrs. Sundon might be a female Vincent de Paul, proposing 
to found a society for the relief of every sufferer in Eondon, 
to judge by her absorption. 

Master Charles and Lady Bell were more restricted in their 
philanthropy; they were full of their companion. They 
could no longer look each other in the face, and deny her 
odd ways ; whether some gi’eat enterprise and scheme of 
mercy were at their root, or whether they were but signs of 
the breaking up of the foundations, and the meutaJ wreck of 
the woman. 

Master Charles held the first view. ‘‘She is going to 
come out in still truer colours,” he maintained with tender 
fanaticism to Lady Bell. “ You remember how she put her- 
self out of her way, and would have braved ridicule and 
blame, to interpose in my behalf. I think if I had not 
passed her my word not to game, I should have seen her 
grand sweet face appear some night, among the reeking 
faces round the card-table, bidding me and my companions 
forbear. She is seeking to save the lost, somehow and some- 
where. She is only more indifferent to the self-sacrifice 
which she is making more complete.” 

Lady Bell rather inclined to the latter and- more miserable 
view. Under her own smiling restlessness, or her apathy, 
her endless quips and cranks, or her listlessness. Lady Bell 
felt her heart “ was broke.” She knew that she had done 
very wrong more than once in her lite, and that she was 
j)ayiiig the forfeit. She had left her husband when she was 
a girl-wife, and after she had lived to be a woman she had 
been given over to a strong delusion, to put herself in the 
power of a husband who had in turn abandoned her. 

So how could Lady Bell hope the best, and refuse to 


400 


LADY BELL. 


believe in wrong and misery because it was too bad foi 
belief ? 

“I shall stand by Sunny to the last,” Lady Bell told 
Master Charles, “ though I think she is ceasing to care for 
me. She hardly listens to what I say when we are abroad 
together, or during meals ; as for any other time at hopae, 
ske is shut up about her own business, with which nobody 
must meddle ; but which brings the strangest characters more 
and more about her.” 

“Do they follow her to her lodgings now?” inquired 
Master Charles anxiously. 

“ On the night of the assault upon the watch-house iii 
Moorfields,” communicated Lady Bell, “I passed two rough 
men in dreadnoughts on our stairs, and I saw by the lamp 
the gleam of the cutlasses with which those other desperate 
characters that wounded the watchmen and rescued the 
prisoners, were armed. Grod knows what possesses Sunny, 
what she has done, or means to do. But I shall be lost 
indeed if I lose her, when you are gone to the wars, from 
which men never come back — no, never as they went, I 
mean. Their bodies may return, and their spirits too, for 
that matter ; but they are not the same men — oh, far from 
it!” Lady Bell shook her head with the sombre wisdom of 
experience. 

“I swear that you will find me the same,” volunteered 
Master Charles with vehement confidence. 

“You need not tell me that,” Lady Bell contradicted the 
speaker quite indignantly; “I cannot believe it, sir, not in 
the least. I say that I have seen men as good change so 
utterly, that their nearest and dearest would never have 
known them, again. There is no occasion to be offended. 
Master Charles,” continued Lady Bell more lightly ; “ think 
of the reverses, the accidents in life, think what weak crea- 
tures we are. Pooh 1 you may arrive at home to find me 


KENSINGTON GARDENS. 


401 


grown as fat as Miss Kingscote, or become a nun, or turned 
farmer, or joined the ‘ Blues,’ and writing a book in Grub 
Street.” 

“It is more likely that I shall hear of you as Lady BeU — 
something else than Trevor.” Master Charles really felt 
flat, and was not in spirits for nonsense, but he rallied to 
make the remark which might be expected from him. “ You 
will have owned a master, and be following his lead.” 

“You will sooner hear of me in my grave,” said Lady 
Bell with such abrupt earnestness that he started and looked 
at her. 

Was this other friend, only less dear to Master Charles 
than Mrs. Sundon — this girl who was like a sister to him, 
struggling in toils of her own — dreading to perish in his 
absence ? 

Lady Bell saw the impression which she had made, and 
was quick in trying to smile it away. “Don’t mind me, 
Master Charles,” she recommended to him, “you know I 
talk a great deal of random chatter, — I always did. You 
have enough troubles, poor fellow, without being additionally 
burdened by my fancies. Girls have no end of fancies. Sure, 
I am pure well, only moping at odd moments for the town 
being full ngain, and the breezes blowing fresher, and these 
sere leaves,” catching at a prematurely dried and crackling 
cluster, “being stained an honest brown.” 

“I know that you used to wish time would fly faster, and 
the months run on,” Master Charles reminded her. 

“Oh! I was a little fool,” she cried, “the greatest little 
fool in the world. I did not know what the months were 
running on to — to make me a withered old woman. Master 
Charles, and you a stiff old veteran, perhaps walking lame, 
or wheezing with an Indian swamp cough. But let us turn 
to the opposite extreme. Do you remember how we plucked 
flowers, and collected feathers, and scrambled up banks and 

D D 


402 


LADY BELL. 


skipped down again, and sang and danced at dear old Nut- 
field and SummerhiU ? My youth, was spent there, and I 
have always that season to be thankful for.” 

Although she was laughing, tears which sprung up more 
easily and were harder to force down now than formerly, 
shone in her eyes. He was struck with what he had been 
previously blind to. 

Lady Bell’s pale, dark-eyed beauty was paler and darker- 
eyed than it had ever been before, for the paleness verged 
on wanness, and the soft gloom of the eyes was increased till 
it shadowed the whole face. There was less of the little 
figure than there used to be. The small bones of the wrist and 
elbow, where she had pulled off one long glove for coolness, 
the collar-bones under her neckerchief, had become prominent. 

Lady Bell was falling away in flesh far more than Mrs. 
Sundon had fallen away. For that matter, Mrs. Sundon had 
the magnificent framework of a woman magnificent in con- 
stitution, as in everything else. But a small being like Lady 
Bell, if she took to vanishing, might soon be a sprite 
altogether, with her cast-off bones deposited in church-yard 
soil, as she foreboded. 

Master Charles sighed heavily, with the conviction that the 
whole world was out of joint, and he was bound for the wars, 
leaving these dear and tender women to fear and fail as they 
might, without him. 

Lady Bell had been simply walking by Master Charles’s 
side. He proceeded to draw her arm through his, in the 
pain and consternation of the conviction that the merry, 
charming girl of whom he had been fond in an honest, manly 
way, was growing weak and weary. 

“Lean on me, dear Lady Bell,” he charged her, thinking 
farther, “ Take what good you can of me while you have me. 
It is little that I can do for you, but you are heartily welcome 
to that little, before I am far away.” 


ICENSINGTON GARDENS. 


403 


There was just a sprinkling of company in the Grardens, 
and that sprinkling hovered near the many-windowed red 
palace, with its red sentinels, or took refuge by the water. 

There was the great stillness about, which sometimes de- ' 
scends on the world in the full blaze of a summer afternoon, 
when the birds, with nothing more to hope for in the perfec- 
tion of the year, have given over singing for the season ; and 
all life besides, even the young human life of streets and 
suburbs, is for once tired out, and fain to be quiet. 

The glow of the sun was well shut out in the side avenue 
which Lady Bell and Master Charles were traversing. 

Those were still grand old elm trees, which had shaken 
their bold boughs over earlier generations and former reigns. 
Lady Bell had cast a stigma on their parched and scorched 
leaves, showing many an untimely, sickly or dead, straw or 
ash-coloured tint, in the prevailing dusky summer green. 

But few free and fresh country trees in dewy meadows and 
hedgerows afforded more grateful shade, or interlaced their 
boughs into such welcome aisles, as these faithful guardians 
of the old palace park in the old court suburb. 

The turf below was as soft as velvet in its olive moss. It 
was pleasant to recall what brave men and fair women had 
trodden that turf and walked beneath these trees. 

At this moment Lady Bell and Master Charles formed a 
couple not unsuitable to the locality. They might represent 
a pair of lovers, or a young husband and wife. In either 
light they looked a picture of fearless confidence and trustful 
rest, while they passed tranquilly along, as it were too happy 
to speak — so happy, that happiness in its entire fulfillment 
waxed dumb, and borrowed a shade of pensiveness. 

Lady Bell and Master Charles were altogether unlike the 
young couple who stole out secretly, and met under the bleak 
spring skies and the bare boughs of the Mall at St. James’s, 
wild with agitation, to confess their love and cling to each 


404 


LADY BELL 


other ere they parted for months, and years, or for ever, sob- 
bing the one moment, laughing the next, not daring to give 
themselves time to think, to look grave, to draw back before 
they rushed to bind themselves to each other by a tie which 
only death could break. 

Master Charles and Lady Bell were like lovers in a dream, 
treading there so peacefully and contentedly ; and like the 
mad nightmare into which a quiet dream sometimes breaks, 
came the catastrophe. 




OHAPTEE LYI. 


A HAT TOSSED OFF. LADY BELL PICKS DP A GAUNTLET. 

the couple in their promenade rounded a clump of trees, 
a gentleman advancing in the opposite direction met 
them unexpectedly face to face, took in at a glance their 
whole aspect, and could no longer resist the devil in him, as 
he had resisted it in former temptations. 

In an instant a gloomy face became black as night with 
jealousy, rage, and hatred. The next moment the new- 
comer did what sounds a small and silly thing, but what was 
in fact ominous enough — he stepped a foot nearer, snatched 
Master Charles’s laced hat from his head, and flung it among 
the trees. 

Master Charles was in such sheer amazement that he 
stood thunderstruck. His brown hair was slightly matted 
about the flushed forehead and youthful face, before he shook 
it back and broke out into a passionate oath: “Man, if you 
are not mad, you shall answer for this. What do you mean 
by such a monstrous insult — before a lady, too ? ” 

“I shall be rejoiced to answer for the insult, and to teU 
you my meaning, if indeed that is necessary, behind the 
lady’s back. Ensign Kingscote,” answered Harry Eane with an 
ugly grin, which showed his teeth. 

Lady Bell had not screamed at flrst, or hastened to inter- 
pose between the men. She had merely dropped the arm 


4o6 


LADY BELL. 


which. Master Charles had given her, and remained riveted 
to the spot. But she screamed now with a sharp ringing 
cry, as if it were she who was to suffer the shooting or 
stabbing for which this tossing off of the hat paved the way. 

She stretched out her arms as if she would with their 
feeble help, ward off blows, and she appealed piteously to 
Master Charles. 

‘‘ Don’t mind him, he is mad — ^he has been mad for long — 
let him do what he will ; come with me.” And she ran 
aside, picked up Master Charles’s hat, and held it out to 
him imploringly, while Captain Fane looked on savagely, and 
misunderstood every word and act. 

His mind in a flash drew the falsest comparison between 
Lady Bell in Kensington Gardens and “wanton Shrews- 
bury ’’ among the trees of Cleveden ; and he said to him- 
self, that in order to make the analogy complete, it was a 
pity Shrewsbury’s successor did not have a horse to hold for 
this fellow, while another horribly injured husband’s blood 
was shed. But, by Heaven ! he should shed his blood 
dearly, and put his mark on this lad, only less miserable 
than himself. 

“ No, no. Lady Bell.” Master Charles put aside her peti- 
tion with rough freedom in his hot resentment. “ It may be 
mighty flne what you know in excuse for this villain, but I 
cannot listen to it ; my honour as a gentleman and soldier is 
concerned. You must leave me to settle my own account.” 

“There are two of us desiring the settlement,” remarked 
Captain Fane grimly, beginning, however, to recover from 
his flt of blind fury. “ But we may as well transact the 
business regularly,” he said, with swift scorn of himself, 
added to the sickening scorn, in alternation with the fierce 
wrath, which he felt against the pair before him; “we need 
not make an uproar, and we may dispense with either a park- 
keeper’s or a lady’s presence.” 


LADY BELL PICKS UP A GAUNTLET. 


407 

Harry Fane was again striving to put that curb upon him- 
self, which even on a bitterly shameful extremity might 
be demanded of a man of sense and discipline, half a dozen 
years older than the beardless, swaggering boy whom a light 
woman in her idle folly had preferred to her husband, and 
had vilely put in his place. 

Harry Fane forced himself briefly to defer his vengeance, 
and to go through the form of raising his hat and offering 
his card to Master Charles, still swelling and stuttering with 
astounded indignation, while Captain Fane pledged himself 
that he would be at home to receive any messenger on Mr. 
Kingscote’s part for the next twenty-four hours. 

But Lady Bell had not withdrawn, as Master Charles had 
bidden her, from an encounter with which she could not cope, 
tending on a discussion which was not within a woman’s pro- 
vince, though like many a woman in a similar case, she was 
at the bottom of the mischief. She continued close by, a 
determined and desperate witness of all that passed. 

Lady Bell had been foiled in her appeal to her friend. 
She had no resource but to address her former lover and 
husband. She must ask mercy from the man at whose hands 
she had not sought justice, whose treatment of her, so far as 
she could see, had been dastardly and cruel beyond com- 
prehensionj unless she would be the death of her innocent, 
manly friend and brother. Master Charles. 

At that moment Lady Bell had so great a pity for Master 
Chaides’s youth and manliness, for the hopes that she knew 
had been set upon him down at Nutfield and Lumley 
(where everybody had been kind to her, and where she had 
been happy, as she had said lately, during a season), for all 
that Master Charles was to the simple, homely soul, his 
sister, who had sheltered and petted Lady Bell, that she did 
not seem to grudge the utmost that she could do in his 
service. 


4o8 


LADY BELL. 


Lady Bell stepped into the breach like Mrs. Sundon, 
from whom they had strayed into such harm. Lady Bell, 
too, could put aside her wrongs and sorrows for a space. She 
was perfectly calm, though deadly white, when she spoke to 
Harry Fane. 

“ Captain Fane,” she said, “I have held my tongue till 
now, when I must speak to prevent murder. Yes, it will be 
murder without provocation or reason, if you go out and 
fight Master Charles, with whom you have no quarrel, except 
that he has always been my friend. Wreak your vengeance 
on me, since I have monstrously offended you ; but spare 
him. He is his sister’s only brother ; he is the young Squire 
of Nutfield, who is to restore his father’s house.” 

“I have nothing to do with that,” growled Harry Fane. 

“Have done, or I shall never forgive you. Lady Bell,” 
fumed Master Charles in one breath. 

But she had not done. “ I know that,” she went on, 
addressing Harry Fane; “but you see how young he is, in 
the first flush of life, going to the wars in search of fortune 
and glory, but it may only be to win an honourable grave. 
Need you anticipate the last? You are years older, Harry 
Fane, and you know as well as I do what life brings. I 
dare say it would be no more than kindness to cut short 
this life, but have you the heart to do it?” 

She looked up in his face for the first time since she had 
spoken. Then she shut her eyes, and staggered back to a full 
consciousness of her own misery. She could not bear to see 
the agony of condemnation and reproach in the set face, or 
to look on the features which, irregular and weather-beaten as 
they were, she had learned to think the model of manly 
beauty, and to call her Harry’s traits. These were written 
on her heart, even to the knit of the brow and the trick of 
the lip, and they filled her with a piteous, vain yearning for 
the dear face to be turned kindly on her once more. 


LADY BELL PICKS UP A GAUNTLET. 409 

Tlius the living, visited by a dream-pbantom, or by the 
chance resemblance of a passer-by, yearn for the dead re- 
stored to life again — ^to see, to hear, and to hold as of old in 
a loving embrace. 

“ You plead well, Lady Bell, if you were not pleading to 
me,” was wrung from Harry Fane. 

“I will have no more pleading for me. Lady Bell,” cried 
Master Charles, as bewildered as ever in his rage ; only clear 
that he would not be defended by Lady Bell, or by any 
other. 

And she pled no more for him. She had literally lost 
sight of Master Charles and all that concerned him, in that 
fleeting glance at Harry Fane’s face, which had rolled back 
the tide of feeling and recollection to the time when he 
loved her, and was mad to marry her. It was to save 
Harry Fane from a desperate deed and a long remorse, 
that she was fain at last to humble herself in the dust before 
him. 

“ Oh Harry, Harry,” — she pressed up to her husband, 
whispering, but in accents which Master Charles could still 
catch, marvelling, and recoiling petrified, — “am I worthy 
of such a sacrifice ? Could you not let me go, believing, at 
least, that I shall not willingly cross your path ? Do not 
stain your hands and conscience for me. Do not slay or 
be slain on my wretched accoimt. Live to forget me, what- 
ever I have cost you — to be a gallant officer and the good 
man in a wicked world that I believed you.” 

“You tell me plainly that you do not deserve that this 
gentleman and I should fight for you,” he exclaimed, putting 
his own merciless construction on her unwitting words, and 
writhing as he did it. 

“Yes, yes,” she assured him eagerly, thinking as she 
spoke of “errors, not crimes;” of her rebellion and flight 
from Squire Trevor; of the compromising rashness, the 
18 


410 


LADY BELL. 


setting at naught of her friends, in her second marriage. 
‘‘I have been a proud, selfish girl, and see what has come 
of it. You used not to approve of duelling ; you called it a 
barbarous practice. You said it was a rude remnant of 
savage violence, that wanted being put an end to. You 
agreed that there might he greater courage in declining, 
than in consenting to fight a duel. I recollect what others 
will recollect also. Will you give the He to the whole tenor 
of your life, after what I have said to you ?” 

“ No more,’’ Harry Fane charged her, turning away ; 
‘‘you are right here. Mr. Kingscote, the matter rests with 
you ; but if this will serve your turn, I say I am sorry that 
I have troubled you and myself in this miserable afiair.” 
He was gone without another word or look. 

“Lady Bell, you must explain yourself, and this scene, 
which is altogether unaccountable,” Master Charles said at 
last,, hardly knowing what he said or what to think at the 
end, any more than at the beginning. “ Shall I follow the 
fellow, and knock him down, after all, though for the life of 
me I cannot tell what ails him ?” 

“Knock him down, Master Charles!” cried Lady Bell 
with an odd laugh, which tingled through the lad’s nerves. 
“I should like to see you do that I You must measure your- 
self with fitter adversaries. You may be another little David, 
but you can never conquer this Goliath. He is beside him- 
self, but he is worth us all ten times over, do you hear that? 
I say it. He is a true and noble gentleman, only beside 
himself.” 

“He ought not to be at large,” objected Master Charles 
doggedly ; and then he thought himself justified in insisting, 
“But what has made him beside himself, and what have you 
to do with him ? ” 

“Oh, never mind that now. Master Charles,” sighed Lady 
Bell, putting her hand on her breast to stay the fiuttering at 


LAl^Y BELL PICKS UP A GAUNTLET. 


411 

her heart. *‘It is a long story — do I owe it you ? I cannot 
teU. Spare me at present, Master Charles ; oh ! do you 
spare me. Let us return to Sunny, and say nothing of this 
encounter, till I have time to think and make up my 
mind.’* 


OHAPTEE LVn. 


MASTEK CHAELES PAYS A POBMAL VISIT. 

Af ASTEE CHAELES was reduced to tlie lowest ebb of 
doubt and distraction regarding bis friends. He com- 
plied so far witb Lady Bell’s petition, coinciding as it did with 
his own instinct, not to add inconsiderately to Mrs. Sundon’s 
tribulation by the tale he had to tell. 

Master Charles tried to get an interview with Lady Bell 
next morning, for the purpose of inducing her to confide in 
him; but Lady Bell pleaded what might very well be a 
real obstacle — indisposition. 

He was aware, too, that though he had her in a tete-d-tete, 
it might be to no purpose. He knew of old how she could, 
when she would, go off at a tangent, vindicating the preroga- 
tives of her sex and rank, when, her dignity being equal to 
her softness, wild horses, metaphorically speaking, could not 
draw a secret from Lady Bell. 

But a young woman like Lady Bell ought not to be left to 
herself. She should have a friend to act for her, whether 
this mad fellow, who had been in plain clothes, but whose 
name it struck Master Charles, on refiection, was the same as 
that of the naval captain who had brought home an American 
prize a month back, were some Unacknowledged connection 
by blood of the late Earl of Etheredge’s, or whether he held 
and abused some power over Lady Bell. She should have a 


A FORMAL VISIT. 


.413 

friend to act for her, Master Charles decided, becoming abso- 
lutely fatherly in his brotherliness. 

Master Charles cudgelled his generous, honest young 
brains, and arrived at a conclusion worthy of them. 

Master Charles returned from his fi’uitless attempt at seeing 
Lady Bell, and discovering from her on what pretence a man 
whom she still professed to hold in honour could, unless he 
were mad indeed, come up and grossly insult her companion, 
simply because he was her companion, in a public place, and 
after she had succeeded in preventing the inevitable conse- 
quences, could leave her with a parting taunt as to her share 
in the quarrel. 

Master Charles repaired to a coffee-house, dined there, and 
was particular in making his afternoon toilette. 

In those days soldiers and sailors went abroad under their 
respective colours. Master Charles saw that his uniform, his 
hair, his gloves, and square-toed shoes were in proper punc- 
tilious order. 

He first studied a card which he had in his pocket, and 
then he sallied forth, ruffling out his cravat and frills, and 
twirling his cane with a certain self-satisfaction, but not so 
much like a military fopKng as in the character of a man 
whose mind is made up to the fairest alternative. 

Master Charles’s destination was Captain Fane’s lodgings 
in Eed Lion Square, Holborn, next door to the house of Mr. 
John Harrison, who had received a grant from Parliament 
for constructing timekeepers so as to ascertain longitude and 
latitude. 

Master Charles was bound for the braving of Lady Bell’s 
madman — ^not to assault him at a disadvantage — not even to 
carry him a cartel, since by the laws of duelling a principal 
in a duel could not convey his own challenge. 

Master Charles was on his way to offer and require state- 
ments which might demolish an ugly brood of mistakes. 


414 


LADY BELL. 


But if not, and if called on to inflict punishment, Master 
Charles would not he found wanting, however ineffectual 
Lady Bell had counted him, as a dealer of retribution, and 
with his arm nerved by a righteous cause, as well as by his 
own vigorous young thews and sinews, he should dispense 
summary justice where it was due. 

Such a course was well-nigh impossible to a guilty man, 
however high-spirited, or however arch a hypocrite. It was 
only likely to suggest itself to a pure-minded gentleman, and 
to a young fellow of sense, as well as virtue, whose nature 
was open and honourable, and who feared no inspection 
either of his motives or his actions, kloreover, it was a line 
of conduct which would hardly have been practicable to a 
man in the least degree overbalanced by passion, who could 
not take the whole circumstances, and his relation to them, 
into calm consideration. 

This reasoning was so patent, that when Master Charles, 
declining to send in his name beforehand, was shown as “ a 
gentleman on business ” into the parlour where Harry Fane 
was sitting, sternly applying himself to some scientiflc data, 
even Harry, possessed and besotted as he was, felt for a 
second staggered in his convictions. 

But there is such a rare thing as “ unparalleled audacity,” 
and Harry Fane was under widely different influences from 
those which guided Master Charles. 

Harry Fane could not succeed in striking out every gleam 
of light from a mind naturally open to light ; but the bare 
sight of the dashing, blooming young soldier caused Harry’s 
blood to boil, and sent it in a tumultuous, overpowering rush 
to his brain. 

‘‘ I thought that we had done with each other, sir,” quoth 
Harry as he rose, glaring and snarling at his visitor ; ‘‘ but 
if you are of a different opinion, I am with you. N9 abstract 
theory of duelling need apply to an exceptional case. I am 


A FORMAL VISIT. 


4^5 

ready to meet you liere Trith locked doors and our swords, or 
with, pistols across the table, as you choose.” 

“ Good God ! ” protested Master Charles, with the freshest 
surprise and indignation, “ what have I done, or what do 
you think I have done, that you should he ready for us to 
butcher each other in this fashion ? I did not come here for 
butchery.” 

“Did Lady Bell ” — with all his efforts Harry Fane could 
not keep his voice under entire control when he spoke her 
name — “ send you to me ? ” he demanded sharply. 

“ Lady Bell Trevor knows nothing of my being here, where 
I came to tell my story and to hear yours, sir,” retorted 
Master Charles, with the sedate dignity and authority of an 
aspersed man seeking to clear himself. 

“The stories will reflect prodigious credit on Lady Bell 
Trevor said Captain Fane bitterly, with an emphasis on the 
proper name which was a profound mystery to Master Charles. 
But he would not let himself be disturbed or turned from his 
intention by the invidious accent, whether or not it might 
prove the saturnine naval ofidcer stark mad or the victim 
of some extraordinary imposture, or in an unexplained way 
connected with Lady Bell through her late husband, instead 
of through her father, the deceased earl. 

“ You shall hear me, and then come to a decision,” Master 
Charles said, perhaps with a little exasperating tone of dicta- 
tion, wariness, and soothing in his voice. For Captain Fane 
flew up, breathing fire and smoke more furiously than ever. 

“ Upon my soul, I don’t know why I should hear you, Mr. 
Kingscote,” he cried, rapidly losing his self-restraint. “Let 
me tell you what common decency might have told you, 
that though I don’t think it worth while to revenge myself 
by inflicting proper chastisement upon you, after what I 
heard, still your presence here is so insolent and intoler- 
able an intrusion, so outrageous an insult, that it may end 


4i0 


LADY BELL. 


in my not being able to help ridding myself of your pre- 
sence by throwing you out of the window. Kemember, 
sir, there is no miserable woman here to get you spared by 
her own degradation.’* 

‘^Inflict proper chastisement! Throw me out of the 
window * Lady Bell degrading herself to spare me I ” 
panted Master Charles with a flush. At the same time he 
stepped back in open-mouthed consternation at the height 
of the madness of the full-grown, powerful man whose 
superiority Lady Bell had vouched for, and who was yet 
at large and holding a commission in His Majesty’s navy, so 
much to the purpose that a recent Gazette had chronicled, 
with a flourish which Master Charles recollected to have read 
with envy. Captain Bane’s distinguished capture of a frigate 
from the enemy. . 

But Master Charles rallied like a brave young fellow from 
the shock of the compromising violence, and reverted faith- 
fully to the upright, rational design with which he had come. 

‘‘ Ho you know to whom or of whom you are speaking, 
Captain Fane ? ” he asked, gravely. • “At least hear me (the 
greatest offender has a right to be heard), though it may 
be of no use, and then speak of throwing me out of the 
window.” 

In a frenzy as Harry Fane was, the courageous single- 
heartedness of the lad made its way. 

“Say what you have got to say,” Harry yielded angrily 
and with a heavy sigh, standing up against the window- 
shutter, “ and be quick about it, for I cannot answer for 
myself. I have shown you beforehand that your words 
are of no moment to me; but have them out, and let us 
be quit of each other in one way or another. For my part, 
sir, I desire never to see your face again.” 

Master Charles cleared his throat formally, and rested his 
hand on the back of a chair. 


A FORMAL VISIT. 


417 


“ It lias been a pride and pleasure to me,’^ began the 
young fellow, “to be of the least use or service to two ladies 
for whom I have so deep a reverence, so high a regard, as 
that which I feel for Lady Bell Trevor and her friend, Mrs. 
Sundon.” 

“A truce to your abominable affectation and hypocrisy.” 
Harry Fane ground the words through his teeth. 

Master Charles paid no heed. He was bent on going 
through with his task. 

“I knew Lady Bell first. Indeed she lived in our house — 
with my sister and me, I mean — for many months. She had 
gone away when she was a mere girl from her home, after 
some quarrel with old Squire Trevor, to whom her friends 
had married her so unsuitably, and she fell in, when travel- 
ling, with the great actress, Mrs. Siddons. I daresay you 
have heard so much, and can follow me,” broke off Master 
Charles, having an irresistible desire to ascertain how far he 
was impressing his listener. 

Captain Fane merely nodded sulkily. Something of this 
Lady Bell had told him, and the old story, with its indis- 
cretion and simplicity, and even its slight fantasticalness, 
bringing up the old figure of the woman with whom he 
had fallen so madly in love, somehow shook his conviction of 
her untruth. 

Oh, the drivelling folly of the doubt when he had re- 
turned so soon to find her levity the disgraceful theme in 
every mouth, to hear her talked of as the widow whose 
giddy, fro ward pranks were common property — and she 
no widow, but the new-made wife of a man absent, ex- 
posed to danger and death, a woman whose peculiar cir- 
cumstances ought to have detained her in the strictest 
seclusion, or taught her the • most heedful carefulness in 
society. 

Alter what his own eyes had seen of her and his own ears 
18 * E E 


4i8 


LADY BELL. 


heard her tongue admit, what could she be but the fine lady 
deeply tainted, nay, engrained with evil ? 

She had been so greedy of conquest that she had even 
angled for the admiration of a poor, plain man, who had 
earned undeservedly the reputation of being a philosopher; 
and when she had fooled him to the top of her bent, her end 
was served, to his life-long dishonour and misery. 

Mrs. Siddons recommended Lady Bell as a companion 
to my sister. Lady Bell was then passing under the name 
of Miss or Mrs. Barlowe,” explained Master Charles, with 
anxious elaboration, “as a better protection against any 
pursuit from her husband, and she was glad to stop and be 
out of the way at Nutfield. It was a mutual benefit for her 
to be with us,” declared Master Charles, with the most per- 
fect transparency in his oflP-handedness. “We grew as fond 
of her as possible before we had a notion that she was a 
woman of quality — of title at least. She was so gracious and 
obliging, so ready to be amused. She would teach me as 
well as Deb all sorts of things — games and dances. We were 
like brother and sister.” 

Was the relation artfully suggested? It did not sound so. 

“ Then Mrs. Sundon came to Nutfield for summer quar- 
ters.” Here Master Charles manifestly faltered, bent his 
head, coloured to the temples, and was forced to pause for 
an instant. When he spoke again it was with indignant 
haughtiness. 

“ There is no need to bring into our conversation the name 
of the best and most unfortunate of women, whose misfor- 
tunes should throw a shield over her, as her virtues shed a 
halo round her, except to say that she had known Lady Bell 
before, and immediately recognised her, and that when 
Squire Trevor’s death set Lady Bell free, and enabled her to 
cast aside all disguise, she and Mrs. Sundon took up house 
together at Summerhill, near Nutfield, and still did me the 


A FORMAL VISIT. 


419 


honour of calling me their friend. Poor generous, gentle 
souls ! a man may wonder at their still being able to trust 
in him,” Master Charles could not help exclaiming in a 
paroxysm of compassion and wrath, ‘‘after what they have 
suffered from men. But stay, I cannot hear myself speak ; 
what is the uproar without ? ” cried Master Charles, coming 
to a dead stop, forced to give way to a sudden tumult and 
clatter of many feet, with the hubbub of many voices in the 
street below. 

As the noise continued and the strong rush of passers-by 
did not abate. Captain Fane flung up the window at his side. 

In immediate response to the action several voices shouted 
up, “A gang of false coiners seized in a house in Holborn, 
a gentleman of quality among them — the same that stabbed 
one of his own sort in a gambling-house brawl last year, and 
was thought to have been let slip beyond seas — one Mr. 
Sugden or Sutton, of a place in a midland county — a greater 
capture than that of the brothers Perreau.” 


CHAPTEE LYin. 


AN ARREST AND A RESOTJB. 

1\T ASTER CHARLES leapt up as if lie had been shot. 
H-L <<(3j-ood Lord! what a strange coincidence!” A spasm 
passed across his face, leaving its fresh comeliness shocked 
and perturbed in every line. 

He kept in the background, and yet looked out with an 
eager fascination when he and Harry Fane, as if by mutual 
consent, dropped their discussion for a moment, and stood 
ready to stare with the crowd, already packed and jostling 
each other for places in the line which the arrested gang 
would traverse. 

The false coiners were on foot, walking in a file, hand- 
cuflPed, and guarded by watchmen and soldiers on their 
certain way to the gallows. 

The men looked for the most part, whether hanging their 
heads, dead-heaten, or holding them up with effrontery, a set 
of dirty, ill-conditioned mechanics or dissolute tradesmen — 
with one single exception. 

It was that of a man who had been wounded in the fray 
at the arrest, and was carried last in a chair. To those who 
could see into the chair there was presented a soiled and torn 
heap of velvet, cambric, and lace, belonging to a half recum- 
bent figure, with the eyes closed, though the convulsive work- 
ing of the muscles of the face was still perceptible. The 


AN ARREST AND A RESCUE. 42 1 

features were not so stricken and wasted by debauchery and 
ruin as to be entirely deprived of tbeir original signs of dis- 
tinction and refinement. 

Captain Fane looked out with a sternness that was callous 
in its hardness. These villains were worse than so many 
privateers or smugglers, inasmuch as the former prosecuted 
their base calling with comparative ease and security, till 
they met their deserts by being snared like rats in a hole. 
And what had he to do with them or the depraved man of 
rank who was the chief criminal ? 

Lady Bell had been foolishly fond of that criminal’s wife 
in the days when Sundon of Chevely was no worse than an 
idle, dissipated gentleman. 

"What, again, had Harry Fane to do with that ? He was 
fast dismissing every appeal to his mercy in a similar fashion. 
His old benevolence, with his tolerance, seemed rapidly dying 
out of his poisoned moral nature. His own sorrow and wrong 
so possessed him, that, while it drove him to do a great wrong 
in return, it shut him in from farther sympathy with, and 
feeling for, his fellows. 

Master Charles drew so deep a sigh it was almost 
an appalled sob. See! his successful rival. Here was 
what Mrs. Sundon’ s first love, her wedded husband, had 
come to! 

The next moment Master Charles started violently, clutched 
his hatj and sprang to the door. 

“Stop, sir,” cried Harry Fane imperiously, “you have 
not ended the explanation which you volunteered. I shall 
not allow you to get off like this. What the devil is Sundon 
of Chevely’s arrest to you or me ? I will have no paltering, 
no mocking me.” 

“I cannot stay,” Master Charles looked round to shout. 
“You would not ask me if you had eyes in your head or a 
mind for anything but your own madly selfish delusions. If 


422 


LADY BELL. 


it liad not been for you I should have been with my friends 
to advise and protect them from themselves this afternoon. 
Don’t you see she is there, and Lady Bell with her, in a 
coach, following him to Tothill Bridewell or to Newgate? 
My God ! to think what she must have suffered, and what 
she is going to face ! ” 

Down the stair flung Master Charles, followed close by 
Captain Dane, the two elbowing their way, the one more 
furiously than the other, like a couple of madmen through 
the crowd, to the coach. Luckily for its pursuers, it was 
wedged in till it was all but stopped at this point of its 
progress. 

Master Charles knew perfectly what he should say and 
do. He was about to implore, ‘‘Let me go with you, Mrs. 
Sundon ; I shall not presume, I shall not speak a word, I 
shall keep out of sight if you wish it — only let me be at hand 
to defend you, speak for you, if necessary, fetch and carry 
for you.” 

Captain Dane was but making up his mind in the whirl of 
one distracting moment, as he caught a glimpse of two pale, 
handsome young women, composed as became their order, 
even under this trying ordeal, though Lady Bell’s eyes were 
swimming, and she had difficulty in keeping herself from 
swaying to and fro, with the weakness of recent indis- 
position. 

Lady Bell had come away in so great a hurry to stand by 
her friend to the last, that she had only time to throw a 
mantle over her petite sante dressing-gown. It was delirious 
in Lady Bell to go out in such a state of health, and if Mrs. 
Sundon had not been crazier than her friend she would not 
have permitted it. 

To venture to Newgate, into the court, before the magis- 
trates, into the vile common room with its vile company,[^if 
the gentlewomen could force their way thither, was rather 


AN ARREST ANJ) A RESCUE. 423 

worse than a descent into Hades to rescue from the infernal 
shades a Proserpine or a Eurydice. 

To crown all, Lady Bell, who had heard and seen like- 
nesses and caricatures of the infamous Mrs. Pudd in her high 
head-gear and fashionable dress, as she figured in the great 
Perreau case, was not at all sure whether she. Lady Bell, 
and Sunny, by identifying themselves with the wretched man 
before them, might not be regarded as accomplices, taken up, 
and tried on their own account. 

Master Charles was first at the coach window on his side, 
and put up his petition. 

Mrs. Sundon saw and heard him, and turned to him. She 
altogether denied his request, where she herself was con- 
cerned ; but she denied it with a kind sense of its kindness, 
even in circumstances so supreme, and in the same breath 
she claimed a favour from him. 

No, my friend,” she said, ‘‘I know all that you would 
wish, but I can take no more from you. Porgive me that I 
have taken so much, and that without giving you my con- 
fidence. There is one relief in my misery to-day, that I can 
openly follow my falsely- accused husband. We have no 
farther discovery to fear, God help us. He is my own hus- 
band ; my own dear husband again, in the day of his sore 
distress. No, Master Charles, there is no man, however lost, 
who would be so heartless as to molest a poor woman waiting 
on her captured, injured husband. I do not fear it. But I 
have a charge for you. Take Lady Bell away to some place 
of shelter, lead her safely home. I shall send to you there. 
Bell. I did not know what I was doing when I let you 
come. No, I tell you no. Bell; this is nobody’s business 
save mine. There is only one person whom a woman is 
justified in following to prison.” 

“ Ay, madam, and there is only one who may bid a woman 
follow him,” interrupted Harry Pane roughly, pulling open 


424 


LADY BELL. 


tlie coacli door, “ and who may count on her obedience if she 
he an honest woman. Stand aside, sir, this is not your place,” 
to Master Charles. To ‘Mrs. SundoB — ‘‘You shall drive on, 
madam, in a moment, to your husband, and Grod help you ” 
(with a little relenting in his voice), “but let Lady Bell Fane 
come to her husband when he calls upon her.” 

Lady Bell sat up straight, put up her trembling hands, 
tried to pass them over her eyes to clear her vision bodily 
and mentally, and could not, but lapsed more and more into 
the confusion and passion of a child. 

She stretched out her hands longingly to him, gave a little 
quavering cry, like a child’s — who does not know it ? — when 
the child’s mother has left her darling, and has stayed away 
long, but the child feels that it has found its mother again 
at last. “ Harry, Harry, are you my Harry after all? "Was 
it a dreadful dream ? I thought you disowned me, that you 
had never cared for me. What a fool I must have been ! ” 

None who heard the cry and the words from Lady Bell 
could doubt the substance of Captain Bane’s assertion. And 
here was no time or place for searching into its origin, or 
into the footing on which the couple stood towards each 
other, for interfering between man and wife. 

Mrs. Sundon cried bewildered, “What is this? Here is 
the officer whom we saw at the review, and I thought there 
was something in that encounter which I could not fathom. 
Has Bell stolen a march upon me, and been foolish ? ” 
Mrs. Sundon asked in fresh distress. 

But Mrs. Sundon was losing a husband as Lady Bell was 
finding one. “See to this. Master Charles,” Mrs. Sundon 
told her friend hastily. “ I think I had once a suspicion of 
some troth-plight or alliance having been entered into by 
Lady Bell, but I have forgotten every interest save the 
nearest and most pressing, for a long time. Bell, Bell, why 
did you cheat me ? ” Mrs. Sundon uttered one piteous re- 


^31 AP.REST AND A RESCUE. 


425 


proacli. “But perhaps you could not help it, poor child, 
any more than I could help cheating you.” 

“No, Sunny, I did not mean to cheat you,” said Lady Bell 
very simply and earnestly. 

“Be kind to her, sir, whatever you are,” Mrs. Sundon 
spoke to Captain Fane. “If you led her into a false posi- 
tion, you were the more hound to bear with her, and bring 
her safe out of it. If I ever see better days, I shall tell you 
why I left her to herself, and perhaps, as I begin to under- 
stand, betrayed her into the appearance of evil. But I cannot 
think any more even of BeU, now. Captain Fane, as you 
are an officer and gentleman, and I am an unfortunate 
woman. Lady Bell’s friend and natui-al guardian, you will 
make everything clear to Master Charles. He is a young 
man, but he is the old friend of both of us women. Now, 
farewell all ; none of you needs me like Gregory Sundon, 
let me be gone to him.” And she wrung her hands at the 
compulsory delay. 

Lady Bell was in her husband’s lodgings, standing with 
him there, and the door closed upon them. She had con- 
firmed Captain Fane’s avowal, and Master Charles had left 
them, fain to go to work on Mrs. Sundon’s behalf. 

Lady Bell knew where she was. She looked round, and 
her eye had taken in all the attributes and belongings, from 
the papers on the table to the sword in the corner. 

Lady Bell was coming to herself, was remembering every- 
thing, was thinking — not that this was a poor home, but 
that here was a poor welcome home. She was feeling shy 
and hurt with the soreness of her old wrongs. She was 
asking herself whether Harry had deserved to be instantane- 
ously forgiven for his inexplicable, rude, atrocious behaviour 
to his wedded wife. 

He was coming to himself. He was feeling awkward and 
vexed, reawakening to the rankling of undoubted injuries. 


42b 


LADY BELL. 


He was not certain wlietlier — tLougli lio had been in error in 
the main, God be thanked — he had not been too easily 
induced into seeming to condone the huge amount of provo- 
cation which he had actually received. 

If you had remained down in the country, where I 
believed you to be, all, this lamentable misunderstanding 
would not have happened,” he said stiffly and pragmatically. 

“ I came up to town with my Mrs. Sundon,” replied Lady 
Bell shortly and dryly, seeing that she was put on her 
defence. “1 sujjpose you would have said that I was too 
young to keep house alone,” and she looked at the hem of 
her handkerchief, not at him. 

“Unquestionably,” he rejoined quickly, “if you were to 
enter into familiar association, as with a brother, with a 
young fellow who is in fact no relation to you.” 

“Master Charles had been like a brother to me,” said 
Lady Bell without the least flinching, and with a little 
ominous flash of her dark eyes. “I was very glad to be 
like a sister to him. Was I to anticipate offensive interpre- 
tation of friendship with a poor boy whose very admiration 
for Mrs. Sundon was as high and pure as if she had been a 
goddess seated among the stars ? ” 

“In the. society of others, where I know you would en- 
counter temptation, you could not have been too discreet, 
for my sake as well as for your own,” he persisted in his 
aggrieved tone. 

“ Hear him ! ” cried Lady Bell in the liveliest indignation, 
appealing to Harry Fane against Harry Fane. “ What did 
I do in society ? One would think I had been next to wicked. 
I was easy and merry, like any other happy young married 
woman. If I had not married the man whom I believed the 
best in the world, whom I loved with my whole soul, then I 
might have studied discretion. I did study it when I was a 
wretched child, married to poor old Squire Trevor. Though he 


AN ARREST AND A RESCUE. 


427 


called me idle and silly, wilful and pert — and I warrant I was 
all tliat to a man wlio might have heen my grandfather — still 
he never called me indiscreet. He left that to the ungenerous 
man who, when my heart was singing for joy because I was 
his, and he was mine, when I was wild with pride in the 
possession of my precious secret, expected me to he taking 
all manner of precaution against other men, who had ceased 
for ever to be anything save friends and brothers to me, and 
who were friends all the more for his sake.” ^ 

She had him there with wonderful directness and com- 
pleteness. 

What! her innocent, fond heart had sung- for joy at 
belonging to a man who, knowing her so young, admired 
and exposed, had allowed his mind to be misled and abused 
by circumstances and by his own exacting passion, till he 
had treated like a dog the woman who had chosen him out 
of a thousand, and who had delighted to crown him — un- 
worthy of her in all save the truth and love which had 
signally failed her — with the distinction of her unselfish, 
devoted regard 1 

“Bell,” he said sadly, taking her two hands in his, and 
looking her full in the face, “there is one thing that you 
must take into account before I try whether I can ever make 
you forget that I have behaved to you in my harsh intolerance 
like a villain. My one poor, miserable excuse is, that while 
you were Lady Bell, young, lovely, and charming to every 
eye besides mine, the man whom you were so infatuated as 
to call the best of men, and to enrich with the treasure of 
your affection, was in his own more correct estimation, and 
in that of the world, at the best a gruff, fault-finding, dis- 
agreeable sinner, with no endowment of nature or fortune to 
account for the favour which you had shown him. With 
regard to such a man, it did not seem altogether unnatural, 
Iiowever disastrous to him and to you, that the favour should 


428 


LADY BELL. 


prove short-lived, and that he should he speedily discarded 
from the post which he was not particularly well qualified 
to fin.» 

“Don’t talk prodigious nonsense of yourself, Harry,” 
Lady Bell forbade him through her fast-falling tears. “ You 
know you are the best and wisest of men, to whom a poor 
fluttering thing like me has to stand on tiptoe to look up. 
Only you lost your mind for a season. I believe it was all 
because we did very wrong about the private marriage of 
ours, which is private no longer, and you have taken the 
most absurd, preposterous time to make it public — just like 
a man. But I am left on your hands, Harry Fane, and you 
can no longer disclaim me, if you would.” 


I 

i 



I 


CHAPTEE LIX. 


life’s cheqitebs. 

reappearance of Sundon of Chevely, with his wife 
standing hy him once more, in the abyss into which he 
had snnk, followed as it was by his death in Newgate on the 
very first night of his imprisonment there, broke to the great 
world the shock and scandal of the proclamation of Lady 
Bell Pane’s private marriage for these four months and more, 
to a poor naval ofiicer, unknown save in his profession, and 
to a few dabblers in science. 

The world held up its hands and shrugged its shoulders ; 
but its emotions of wonder, pity, curiosity, and contempt 
were divided, and so far neutralised. 

Harry Pane and Lady Bell were the first people admitted 
to see Mrs. Sundon in the Haymarket lodgings. She had 
returned there, and had been suffered to take with her all 
that was mortal of Gregory Sundon. She had been %y his 
side at the last, along with the chaplain and the prison 
ofB.cials. 

Master Charles had managed that for Mrs. Sundon and her 
dying husband. Master Charles- had flown here and there ; 
he had made all the interest that was to be made ; he had, 
during the short time that was allowed him, shown all the 
metal that lay under his youthful manhood, in being importu 
nate, pertinacious, unrelaxiiig. 


430 


LADY BELL. 


He had won for Mrs. Sundon her poor but invaluable 
consolation. She had got within the bolts and bars of 
Newgate, and braved the gaol-fever, and worse than the 
fever. Her husband’s closing eyes had rested on her face ; 
her forgiveness and support had been with him, as pledges 
of a greater forgiveness, an all-sufficient support; and she 
had secured the boon of the poor untenanted body, which 
she had seen dressed for her in a bridegroom’s suit when 
the spirit was there in its flush of hope and happiness. 
The tabernacle of clay was hers again to clothe ten- 
derly for the tomb, and to lay to that long sleep — all 
that was left to it, all it had craved in the end — not where 
felons lie, but among his own people at Chevely, where his 
child might stand without shrinking by his grave. 

Mrs. Sundon had lived to know that this was the best 
which could happen on earth to Gregory Sundon, who had 
been her flrst love, and to whom truly she had returned 
in his extremity. She was calm — comforted even to some 
extent by the fact to which she clung, that he had been 
arrested and wounded to death in defending himself against 
what was a false accusation. He had paid down his life 
as the forfeit of his misdeeds ; but of the last misdeed with 
which he had been charged, he had been comparatively 
innocent. He had been driven to herd with such men as 
those false coiners, but he had not been actively guilty of 
the c:|ime, though legally it might have been hard to estab- 
lish the non-participation which stopped short at con- 
nivance. 

Still, his death occurring accidentally in connection with a 
crime which he had not committed, was like an atonement 
for that case of manslaughter, in which Sq[uire Godwin had 
perished by Mr. Sundon’ s hand. 

“He came back to me after that,” Mrs. Sundon said; 
“and could I reject him in his misery? I had believed 


LIFE’S CHEQUERS. 


431 


that he hated me because of my opposition to his previous 
sins, and because of my denunciation of them by quitting 
him. But hatred died, and love revived, for he came hack 
to me at once in his desperate need — as to whom else 
should he have gone ? His deeper guilt and danger made 
him mine once more. Is it wrong to say so ? I cannot help 
it, for I think it is human nature. I was hut a woman, Caro’s 
mother, and his one true love, who had loved him in spite of 
all — aye, even in spite of himself.” 

“I love you the better for it. Sunny,” protested Lady 
BeU. 

‘‘There was no more question of infidelity, or treachery, 
or the squandering of the remnant of a fortune,” said Mrs. 
Sundon; “for he came to me straight, I tell you, and he 
only said, ‘My Celia, pity me and help me.’ He did not 
ask me to have mercy. I believe that he, as well as I, 
forgot that it was in question between us two. He pled 
wildly for pardon from Caro, who could not grant it, or 
tell what it meant, as he kissed his child, and she did not 
know him, and screamed at the sight of him ; hut why 
should he have wasted time in asking pardon of me ? ” 

“That was just before I came back from my visit to Lon- 
don,” said Lady Bell. 

“When your coming placed me in great difficulty,” Mrs. 
Sundon nodded, with a sad smile. “I could not throw my 
friend upon the world, even though I found I must go up to 
London, myself, to be near him in his hiding there. In town 
we could have a hundred more chances of communication 
without discovery, and of procuring his fiight into foreign 
parts, a step which the world had anticipated, and so seemed 
to have rendered more practicable. Of course I coiild escape 
suspicion best by meeting his messengers at public places.” 

“ That was why you went so much into public,” said Lady 
Bell, the light breaking in upon her more and more. 


432 


LADY BELL. 


“ Your being with me, contributed to my being unobserved, 
or at least to the putting observers on a false track,” con- 
fessed Mrs. Sundon. “ Yet I did not think of compromising 
you seriously, Bell, though I consented to let you share sus- 
picion. You will believe that, and find excuses for me.” 

“A thousand. Sunny,” declared Lady Bell, with all her 
heart. “ only, if you had told me,” she hesitated, I should 
have stood by you in any circumstances.” 

“I know that, child, I always knew that. But the secret 
was not mine alone, and think what a secret it was,” she 
added with a shudder. “It seemed doing you. a greater 
wrong to impart it to you, than to keep it from you. I 
expected every week that poor Sundon would be gone. I 
knew that if it came to discovery, so far as you were con- 
cerned, we were safe with you. I knew too that you were 
in good hands when I made you over to Master Charles. 
Eemember I looked on you as your own mistress. I thought 
no great mischief could be done for the short time that my 
strait would last, and every week we were disappointed in the 
me^ns of reaching the coast, and crossing the channel, for no 
trust was to be placed in allies tempted by evil doing and 
misfortune on every side. Oh Bell! not poverty but sin 
makes man ‘ acquainted with strange bed-fellows ’ and drives 
him and his to resort to strange practices. Now I see how 
wrong I was, how selfish I had grown in my troubles, and 
what iucalculable harm I might have done to the woman who 
was like my sister.” 

“ Don’t speak of it, Sunny,” said Lady Bell warmly. 

“It is all over, madam,” acknowledged Captain Fane, 
coming forward and making an effort at magnanimity. He 
had not known this lady. He could admit the claim of her 
misfortunes, but he could not yet cancel her offences against 
him and Lady Bell. Mrs. Sundon had proved a sorry friend 
to his wife. 


LIFE'S CHEQUERS. 433 

Mrs. Sundon recognised tlie smouldering condemnation in 
Captain Tane’s tone. That he should continue to bear 
malice against her was no more than what she deserved, and 
was hut another hitter drop in her cup. It was a different 
thing, however, if he retained the grain of a grudge, pro- 
voked hy Mrs. Sundon, against his wife ; there should he 
wanting no supplication or explanation on Mrs. Sundon’s 
part which could prevent such a seed of evil. 

“ Captain Fane, I hear that you are an honourable man, and 
I thank Cod for it on my dear friend’s account,” Mrs. Sundon 
told him wistfully. “ Be generous as well as just. KecoUect 
that I did not know your rights — not that even that was my 
poor Bell’s fault, for she would have told me early in your 
connection, if I could have found the heart to listen.” 

‘‘No more. Sunny,” objected Lady BeU stoutly. “Harry 
is a man, after all, liable to err like the rest of us. But oh ! 
what should I have been without your fostering care ? If 
Harry does not know that now, you will forgive him his 
ignorance ; he will have the grace to grant it some day.” 

“This at least I am ready to admit,” Captain Fane ^id 
less reluctantly and with better grace, “that, after the 
excesses of passion to which I have given way, which, as you 
said quite truly, placed Lady Bell in a false position, in the 
first place, and you might have added, condemned her with- 
out a hearing in the second, I have no right to be hard on 
the shortcomings of my neighbours,” 

“ And you will let me stay with you at this sad time. 
Sunny,” urged Lady Bell, “ you will not punish me for con- 
tracting other ties, by driving me from you in the first days 
of your widowhood. You need not think that he will not 
give me up to you. You two are not acquainted with each 
other, which is an apology for your mutual mistakes. But 
though he has been angry with me, and perhaps he has had 
cause without my knowing it — farther than that, of course, 
19 F p 


434 


LADY BELL. 

I am frivolous and foolisL. compared with, him, still I am not 
frightened to speak up for him. He is not unrelenting and 
grasping in his righteousness ; I can vouch for my husband.” 

“ And I cannot afford to destroy what may remain of Lady 
Bell’s trust,” ]^e said with a glow lighting up his grave face 
and sweetening its severity, “ by withholding any proof of 
confidence in her friend — keep her for me, my dear madam, 
till you can spare her.” 

“No, no,” declined Mrs. Sundon, looking at them with 
longing, rueful eyes. “You are very good, sir, to let me 
have such an instance of your entire forgiveness ; but nothing 
would induce me to come in again between man and wife. 
Besides Bell, though I love you dearly, I would bO alone 
with my husband, my dead husband, whose death has blotted 
out all his sins and restored him to me, as his life could not 
have done. You cannot comprehend that, and I hope you 
never may.” 

“It shall be as you will. Sunny,” submitted Lady Bell, 
awed. 

“ The extremes of life have come to us beyond the power 
of our sympathy to prevent it,” said Mrs. Sundon, “ and 
would divide us in these days, though we dwelt on in the 
same house and clung to each other’s arms. There would 
still be the establishment of your marriage, and the realisa- 
tion of my widowhood, putting a space as wide as life and 
death between us. ‘ The one shall be taken and the other 
left,’ ” she quoted dreamily. 

Another of those contradictions which startle us like co- 
incidences, happened at this time in Lady Bell’s history. 

It would seem to be that in the course of Providence there 
is another web of destiny underlying that which we dimly 
see, and in which the same threads are again and again 
interwoven, not for the purpose of producing similar fortunes, 
but with the effect of regulating corresponding contrasts. 


435 


LIFE’S CHEQUERS. 

One’s neiglitour’s joys happen at the season of one’s 
sorrows — an interval of time passes and the same contrast is 
reproduced a second and a third time ; the tragedy and the 
comedy, the wedding and the funeral in the houses which 
may be next door, or may be those of chief friends occurring 
simultaneously, and with a curiously accurate repetition. 

Within a week of Captain Fane and Lady Bell’s reunion, 
he stopped in reading a paragraph in a newspaper and 
appealed to her, “Are not the people mentioned here. your 
relations in Warwickshire? If so, an awful calamity has 
befallen them.” 

He proceeded to read aloud an accoimt of the burning of 
St. Bevis’s, it was suspected by the act of a ruined gentle- 
man of the name of Cholmondeley, who bore an implacable 
enmity to the family, some of whom had remained inmates 
of the house, and who had himself perished in the fire which 
he had raised. The other victims were the sister of the late 
Squire, Mrs. Die Godwin, and a confidential person connected 
with the family and known as Mrs. Kitty, who might have 
been saved had she sought to extricate herself, and not 
directed her entire energy in the vain attempt to get out 
Mrs. Die, in company with whom Mrs. Kitty was suffocated. 

“Oh, Harry! it is they, and it i? very terrible,” cried 
Lady Bell, covering her face. 

“ He loved her once, after his fashion, as you tell me,” 
said Harry Fane ; “ such is what poor human love may come 
to, when it is without one spark of the divine, when it is of 
the earth earthy, and is fit to sink into what is altogether 
animal and devilish.” 

“Ah! I wish I had been better to them, Harry,” Lady 
Bell bemoaned her follies. “I was so silly and saucy. I 
wish I had gone to them after I was older and knew more ; 
but I was always a selfish, inconsiderate creature, full only of 
my own feelings and concerns, small and great. You have 


436 


LADY BELL. 


mucli to teacli me, Harry Fane, if I am ever to become a 
large-bearted, disinterested woman.” 

“ Inconsideration in a girl in her tedbs is not a very rare 
and unexampled faiKng, I should imagine,” replied Harry, 
with a smile. “At least I can answer for the common pig- 
headedness of boys ; and, if you will forgive me for saying 
so, don’t the bones, as well as the sauce, of the goose match on 
the whole with the bones of the gander ? The capacity for 
learning is the great thing to be desired in the scholar, 
assuming that the teacher is any wiser, which I am not sure, 
after all, is not a gross and impertinent assumption.” ^ 

“ You know better than that, Harry,” Lady Bell told him 
quite seriously. “But these two poor women to die together, 
with nobody to help them,” she continued to lament piteously. 

“In death they were not divided,” repeated Harry gently. 
“ Is not that a consolation for the manner of their deat!h, as 
their love was the one poor solace of their lives?” 


CHAPTEE LX. 


SIX YEARS LATER. 

TiUEING- the next six years, wlien Lady Bell was some- 
times with her husband on foreign stations, sometimes 
keeping house in England while he was at sea, Harry Fane 
never again accused of indiscretion his dear and charming 
wife, who had all the sterling qualities behind her high- 
bred beauty, cleverness, and sprightliness, whose fondness for 
him was so patent that it required no separate expression, 
but passed into every act of that cleverness and sprightliness. 

As for Lady Bell, she had returned to her firm conviction, 
building securely upon it, that her Harry, in spite of his 
faults (she was always careful to make that exception lest 
she should be accused of doting), was the best of mortal men. 

Indeed, after the reformer and satirist had given pledges 
of his human fallibility and toleration by marrying at a 
disadvantage, and by being in the end properly subject to a 
pretty, gay, as well as good, young fine lady ; when she had 
softened his bluntness, mellowed his harshness, and put him 
on better terms with himself and his neighbours, he was a 
good man. 

He vindicated the latent excellence of Lady Bell’s choice 
by the respect with which he and his services were held in 
his profession, though he did not rise so high in it as more 
unscrupulous and time-serving officers rose; above all, by 


438 


LADY BELL. 


tlie sincere esteem and affection whicli liis intelligence, 
integrity, and genuine kindness won for hi m in not a few 
quarters quite apart from the Admiralty. 

None rejoiced more in Harry Fane’s having gained Lady 
Bell, and after gaining her in his proving worthy of her, 
than Jiis cousin Lady Sundon rejoiced. Two such rogues 
had never made a cat’s-paw of her, she vowed, hut she could 
stand being made a cat’s-paw of when a pretty love marriage 
was the end of it ; and how Lady Bell could have trained 
Harry to be so placable, complacent, and absolutely gallant, 
she could not conceive ; but she could admire the result, and 
be sure that Harry did Lady Bell’s discipline credit. 

For that matter both Harry and Lady Bell had well-nigh 
forgotten that an interval of time longer than a day, or a 
misunderstanding graver than a cross look, had passed 
between Captain Fane’s first return after his marriage and 
his claiming and acknowledging his wife. 

Lady Bell loved to go back to the neighbourhood of Lumley 
and stay there, especially when her husband was at home, 
and she could carry him down with her to his beloved country, 
and show him off along with her children to her old friends, 
while she made the benefit mutual by showing them off to 
him. 

Lady Bell was particularly pleased to be in the neighbour- 
hood when Master Charles, as Captain Kingscote, was ex- 
pected home for a breathing space, from the wars, to bring a 
bride to Nutfield. 

Miss Kingscote had kept her promise, and vacated all save 
a maiden aunt’s room in the old house in the Orchard to its 
new mistress, since Master Charles had been so good as to 
complete the programme assigned to him, and was taking to 
himself a wife, the fit complement to his campaigning. This 
was a wife after Miss Kingscote’s heart, with birth, breeding, 
and some fortune, as well as great beauty, parts, and virtue 


SIX YEARS LATER. 439 

— altogether an ample dowry to restore the fallen fortunes of 
the Kingscotes. 

^‘Lawk-a-daisy, Lady BeU, you’ll never he able to hold 
the candle to my sister-in-law,” the good woman told her old 
companion, in Miss Kingscote’s frank exultation. 

“No, I’U never be able to hold the candle to Mrs. Eungs- 
cote,” assented Lady Bell in confidential resignation. 

Master Charles had stolen no march upon his friends, like 
that of which Lady Bell had been guilty ; but it had been 
the wish of both bride and bridegroom that the couple should 
go away by themselves one summer morning, be quietly 
married in the nearest country church, and come riding home 
a few days afterwards, attended only by their servants, like 
any comfortable couple of ten or twenty years’ standing. 
The arrangement had become not unusual in those days of 
decided re-action from splendid wedding shows and public 
bridal rejoicings. 

Thus, though Lady Bell was aware of what had taken 
place, and who might be expected to look in upon her in 
passing presently, she was coolly at work in the familiar 
garden of her former home of Summerhill, which Captain 
Fane had been lucky enough to rent for these six months. 

Lady Bell was assisted in her gardening operations by the 
dainty little daughter of a friend, and by her own small son 
and heir. The three were tracing the outline of a ship with 
low-growing herbs. 

“I once began it before,” Lady Bell was expatiating to 
her young allies, “ but I could not finish it. I am sure to do 
it now with such a pair of subs. It is papa’s ship, PeUew, 
but it is not the Centurion, it is the dear old Thunderlonib. 
Unfortunately it can no longer be a surprise to the ship’s 
captain, for you see this is his idle time, if he were not so 
busy a man always, when he is apt to turn up. There is 
one thing, he will give us a few hints for the bowsprit and 


440 


LADY BELL. 


tlie stern, on wMcli I am a little shaky. No, thank you, my 
boy, I cannot take your authority instead, or agree to your 
personating the bow, as Bottom the Weaver represented a 
waU, and to Oaro’s standing for the stern ; — not though I 
could nail your restless feet still. See, there comes the ship’s 
captain, and there, I declare, they are with him ! ” 

Lady Bell hung down her tools and materials, as she had 
dene on a former occasion, and could not run fast enough to 
meet her friends. 

There was Master Charles in broad-shouldered and bronzed 
manhood, not without his scars, one of which caused him to 
halt slightly as he walked; but his soldier’s credit was worth 
them, and at this moment he did not look so sober and sub- 
dued as he had often looked when the freshness of his first 
manhood was on his cheek, and when his step was well nigh 
as light as Lady Bell’s. 

He was wearing his honours modestly, but one of them 
was a bridegroom’s triumph, and the joy of the true bride- 
groom is proverbial. 

It is only the worldly wisdom of the present day, which 
delights to throw cold water on such natural, warrantable 
joy, and to represent ‘‘the poor craven bridegroom ” as full 
of backward looks, regrets for his lost loves, his perished 
ideal, and his vanished freedom, together with mortal shame 
at his first appearance before the world in the humdrum 
character of “ Benedict the married man.” 

But Master Charles had the high reward of winning his 
first and last love, and the deep satisfaction of clasping his 
ideal. Mrs. Kingseote, who had been Mrs. Sundon, standing 
there beside him, awaiting his wishes like any good wife, 
calling him “lord and master,” and no longer “Master 
Charles,” but familiarly “Charlie,” had been less fortunate 
in her day. 

But she did no wrong to her first love, Gregory Sundon, 


SIX YEARS LATER. 


441 


in giving liini a wortliier successor. Gregory Sundon had 
fallen from his place and forfeited his goods in this world ; 
another man had inherited what was forfeited, and that 
man’s gain could not he counted the prodigal’s loss. It is 
not here that there can he a restoration of all things. 

There was ample wealth left in the mind and heart of the 
woman, still young in years and nohly heautiful in face, to 
reward the loyal and faithful friend and lover, and to endow 
any man. Without douht. Master Charles held himself as 
well endowed heyond hope or desert. 

“ Master Charles,” Lady Bell was calling him, ‘‘ I wonder 
if you know as much difference in me as I know in you ; hut 
then the advantages are all on your side.” 

“Pshaw! Lady BeU, have you begun already to laugh at 
me ? ” cried Master Charles. 

“I am gone off as a helle and a toast — ^forgive my vanity,” 
persisted Lady Bell, “ and am drifting into an old married 
woman, while you have only grown from a likely young 
fellow into a man who might he a general, or the Mayor of 
Lumley, or the Sheriff of the county any day. Why, Sunny, 
your captain looks as formidable as my captain, and you 
know how I am kept in order.” 

“ Her speech shows it,”- said Captain Fane. 

“ I have suspected it, Bell,” said Sunny, “ and only think 
what a had example for Charlie !” 

“We’ll club our resources, my dear,” announced Lady 
Bell, “we’ll tame these men of war, render them as domestic 
as dogs and cats, and call our houses our own, after all. 
How well you are looking. Sunny 1 How setting the white 
veil is to your hat ! ” 

Then as Mrs. Kingscote turned aside to forget every other 
thing in the kiss of her Httle daughter. Lady BeU said 
enthusiasticaUy to aU whom it might concern, “ Caro is a 
darling, hut she wiU never puU caps with her mother. I 
19 * 


442 


LADY BELL. 


appeal to Captain Kingscote. At the same time, I trust, 
Harry, that our children may do us as much credit as that 
child does her mother’s cares and mine. Ah, Caro!” she 
ended by softly apostrophizing the little girl, who was out of 
hearing, “of what plans and projects you were once the 
central figure in these very grounds of Summerhill 1 Yes, 
you may well go up and pay your duty very sweetly and 
prettily, in the midst of your agitation, to your new father, 
who has tossed you as a baby in his arms many a time, and 
who is now wondering over and admiring you. You will 
never miss your own poor father now, as you might have 
missed him, with a girl’s vague longing. Your mother has 
done the best thing for you, as well as for herself, in giving 
you a good father and herself a good husband.” 


THE END. 


HAMMOCK SERIES No. 6 


Caleb, the Irrepressible, 

WHAT THE PRESS SAY OF IT. 

Caleb, the Irrepressible. 

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“A Sane Lunatic.” 

BY THE AUTHOR OF “ NO GENTLEMEN.” 


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“We can assure those who get ‘A Sane Lunatic’ that they will have a 
thoroughly enjoyable book. It is a story of every-day life, told in 
charming language, with a plot of strength and intenseness.” — The 
Philadelphia Chronicle- Herald. 

“A Sane Lunatic.” 

“ The gifted authoress of ‘No Gentlemen’ has written a new novel for the 
Hammock Series. The scenes of this delightful story are mainly laid 
in Fairylands, Lawyer Forrest’s beautiful villa near Boston, with a 
trip to the White Mountains between times. The heroine, Leslie For- 
rest, is a fine specimen of a lovely young lady, while Nell Valentine, 
her particular friend. Is a vivacious little creature and a good little 
body, who would even sacrifice her own happiness to Leslie’s. The 
hero of the tale is broad-shouldered, generous-hearted Douglas Faver- 
nel, and his excellent second is Tom Lalble, always full of fun and a 
great favorite with the ladies. It is Indeed a charming story.” — The 
Golden Rule, Boston. 

“A Sane Lunatic.” 

. “One of the cleverest of the annual swarm of ‘Summer Novels’ that has 
yet appeared.” — New York World. 

“A Sane Lunatic.” 

“It is an excellent bit of Summer reading, being told in a very pleasant 
manner, with nicely drawn characters — comparatively few in number, 
an interesting but not too deeply Involved plot, and othe>' praise* 
worthy features.” — The Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphi<% 


Mailed postpaid on receipt of price. 

HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY, Publishers, 

205 Wabash Ave.. CHICAGO 


WHAT THE PRESS SAY ABOUT 


A Peculiar Peo pie. 


An elegant 12mo vol. of 458 pages, handsomely bound In cloth, 


A Peculiar People. 

“ The recital throughout is spirited, and the book as a whole is one that 
may be read witli pleasure, for the information it imparts and for 
the profitable reflections to which it gives rise."— Saturday Evening 
Gazette, Boston. 

A Peculiar People. 

“It is interesting and well written.”— The Commercial, Cincinnati. 

A Peculiar People. 

“An entertaining sketch of oriental travel. It is full of instructive 
description, historical references, and interesting incidents.”— PittA 
burgh Dispatch. 

A Peculiar People. 

“The book will well pay perusal.”— A Ibanj/ Sunday Press. 

A Peculiar People. 

“There is not a dull page in the book; it will have many admirers. 
Daily Monitor. Concord. 

A Peculiar People. 

“ We commend the book to those who desire home-travel in a wonderful 
land of mystery and marvel, of poetry and prophecy, of philosophy 
and promise."— Pittsburgh Post. 

A Peculiar People. 

“The scene of this unique story is laid in the Orient, in and near Mount 
Lebanon. A pleasing plot runs through the volume, which can not 
fail to interest the reader.”— Star and Covenant. 

A Peculiar People 

“The style is fascinating, and shows the vigor of young manhood, while 
the story illustrates the wisdom of a good, just and holy life.”-^ 
Gospel Banner, Augusta. 


on receipt of price, $1.25, to any address, by the Publishers, 


HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY, 

w awctori 




WHAT THE PRESS SAY OF 


ODETTE’S 


FROM THE 

FRENCH 


OF 

ALBERT DELPIT 


MAEEIAGE 


The N. V. Evening Post, of April 19, says: 

“ The story is told with cleverness, and there is an intensity of 
interest in it which only very cleverly told dramatic stories have.” 

The Pittsburgh Telegraphy of April 9, says: 

‘ A romance of remarkable power, but decidedly French in its - 
many-sided phases.” 

The Philadelphia TimeSy of April 22, says : ^ ' 

" It is a singularly well-contrived and well-written novel. * 

* As a further indication of the high literary standing of the 
book, the fact may be mentioned that it was published originally 
as a serial in the Revue des Deux-MondesT' 

The National Journal of Educationy of Boston, for April 15, says: 

“ This is a charming, good story. * * * a book in such 

an attractive style is a luxury.” 

The National Literary Monthly y of Toledo, Ohio, for May, says: 

“ This is a thoroughly interesting story, beautifully told. * * 

The book before us is a noticeable exception to this general 
:fule of the past. From first to last the language is chaste and 
j;,ure, and the scenes both interesting and exalting. It teaches 
a forcible lesson.” 

Inventors' and Manufacturers' GazettCy of Boston, for May, says: 

“ Scenes are ’dvidly sketched, and to the life, and the characters 
are drawn with the boldness of an able novelist. It will be read 
by all <^lasses.”. 

Unique in sty''e of binding. Clearly printed on fine paper 
Odette’s Marriage is otfered at $1.50* 

Mailed, post-free, on receipt of the price by the publishers, 

HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY, 

205 WabasU Ave., Clxicago 

g^’For Sale by all BookseJlers. 


MAPLE RANGE.” 


(t 


AN HISTORICAL ROMANCK OP THE WESTERN BORDER 

By EDNA A. BARNARD. 

12mo., 444 pp., Cloth; Side and Back Gold Stamp; Price, $1.25. 


“This new novel, published by the well-known and 
widely-popular house of Henry A. Sumner & Co., is writ- 
ten by Edna A. Barnard, an authoress. of Minnesota, who 
has received the hii^hest literary endorsement of her State. 
• It is a romance with historical basis, teeming with inci- 
dents — laughable, pathetic and tragic incidents of early pio- 
neer days. A bright, vivacious story of Maple Range, a 
beautiful frontier town of Minnesota, whose original set- 
tlers are — some of them — with strongly marked character- 
istics, borne through the perils and vicissitudes of the war 
of ' the Rebellion, while their homes are subjected to the 
fearful visitation of the Indians in the massacre of 1862, 
The first chapter introduces a mystery, with the character 
of Miannetta, a magnificent woman of mixed blood, a 
combination of noble principle, deep suffering and high- 
souled conduct, rarely found among the fruits even of 
choicest culture. The piquant coquettishness of ’Lizbeth 
Harkness is in strong contrast with the bright yet wo- 
manly Mrs. Ellis, who broke away from Indian bondage and 
marched till she was “quoted at par.” Another contrast 
is afforded in the sterling manliness of Robert Maynard 
and the villainy of George Langmere. The wholesome 
humor that enlivens, the vivid portrayal of individual 
traits, and the fidelity to nature in coloring, preserves 
the narrative from the monotony and commonplace not 
always avoided in ethical fiction. We heartily commend 
the book to our readers as combining a story of exceed- 
ing power and interest, a freshness of plot, a tenderness 
of sympathy and historical richness that gives solid value; 
a book that, when begun, will be read ihrough with deri- 
vations of delight and wholesome instruction.” 


By mail, postpaid, on receipt of price, — $1.25. 

HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY, Publishers, 

205 Wabash Ave., CHICAGO. 


THE HAMMOCK SERIES.- No. 2. 


BAEBEKINE; 

7he Story of a l/lfoman’s Devotion. 

A NOVEL. 

"No one can begin this story without reading it to the end, 
for there is not a page at which the interest flags, and it is almost 
impossible not to feel that ‘ Barberine ’ was a woman of history, 
and not of fiction.” — N. Y. Herald. 

“ The plot has to do with a Russian Nihilist conspiracy, and 
there is enough love, murder and politics to furnish material for 
half a dozen novels.” — Boston Evening Transcript. 

‘‘Chicago publishing houses are fast coming to the front with 
good books, well made, and sold at popular prices. This is one 
one of them, a volume which we judge from a cursory glance, will 
find many readers during the midsummer weather. It is not a 
philosophical treatise, disguised as a novel by a bright^ well- 
written story. The plot is well laid, and the language in good 
taste.” — Albany Sunday Press. 

‘‘ Few novels issued during the last half year are of more 
absorbing interest. It is a story of a life of self-sacrifice. . . . 

There are some fine dramatic effects produced by weaving into 
the romance an insurrection in Poland, life in St. Petersburg, a 
journey to New York, and thence to San Francisco before the 
days of the railroad.” — N. Y. Evening Mail. 

‘‘It is told with great power, and in a strikingly realistic 
manner.” — Saturday Evening Gazette^ Boston. 

“ The plot is intricate and exciting, and incidents thickly 
crowded and natural.” — St. Paul Pioneer Press. 

“It is absorbingly interesting.” — American Bookseller, N. Y. 

“ There is nothing prosy about it in the least, but overflows 
with a brilliancy that will cause it to be read by thousands.” — 
Commercial Advertiser, Detroit. 

“ This is a charming novel.” — Daily Evening Post, San Fran- 
cisco. 

I vol.y l2mOy 365 pages. Cloth, Red and Cold Stamp. 

I*a:-io©, ^ 1 . S O. 

Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, 

HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY, Chicago. 


Hammock Series, No. 5. 


A Fair Plebeian. 

By MAY E. STONE. 

Author Doctor’s Protege, Etc., Etc. 


i2mo., 260 pp., Cloth, Gold and Black Stamps. 
Price, $1.25. 


“A Fair Plebeian is a society story far above the 
ordinary class of summer Novels, and adds to the high 
character of the ‘Hammock Series,’ which as yet does 
not contain a poor story. 

The author having had large experience gives us a 
smooth and finished work, and a story of delightful situa- 
tions and bright repartee. 

Kitty Kaw, the heroine, is as winsome a lass as one 
would wish to see. 

It is destined to have a very extensive sale if merit 
wins.” — Critic. 

By mail, post-paid on receipt of price. 

HENRY A. SUMNER & COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS, 

CHICAGO. 


^ NEW AMERICAN NOVEL. 








‘•In many respects this is a strong story. ’’^—Evening Journal, Chicago. 

^ Spiritedly written.’’— Gazette, Cincinnati. 

“The writer may be enrolled in the list of successful authors.’’— /otwa 
^tate Register. 

“ It is a story wrought out with considerable skill. The style is graceful 
and subdued, and although there are several sensational incidents, they are 
treated in quite an artistic manner, ''—Daily Evening Traveler, Boston, May 


‘7. 1S80. 


“ Holds the attention closely from beginning to end.” — Bookseller and 
Stationer, Chicago, May, 1880. 

•‘The story is not overdrawn, but it is natural and life-like, in plot and 
design, so much so tliat it does not read like a novel, but a true history of a 
beautiful lite."— Albany (N.Y.) Sunday Press, May 2, 1880, 

“This is an American domestic novel, pure and clean, and beautiful 
in all its elements.” * * Missouri ifepublican, St. Louis. Ma.y 8, 1880. 

“On the whole ‘Her Bright Future’ is above the general average, and, 
if a first dash into authorship, is at least very readable as well as unpre- 
tending.”— J/oeninfif Neivs, Philadelphia, May 7, 1880 




HENRY A. SUMNER &, CO., 

PUBTJSIIERS, CHICAGO. 


PfJRY Ti. gujdpj^^ C0)11PP¥, 

PUBLISHERS, 205. WABASH AVE., 

Offer the following fresh and attractive books at popular prices *. 

IV. ZACHARIAH, THE CONGRESSMAN. 

A Tale o American Society. By Gilbert A. Pierce. Illustrated. Square 
12mo. heavy tinted paper, black and gold ..tamp, 440 pages, $1 00. 

“ Its Washington scenes are vividly sketched, and to the life, the char- 
acters are drawn with the boldness of the ablest novelist, and no American 
novel has ever fascinated me so resistlessly and delightfully ^'—Schuyler 
Colfax. 

"I have read all of ‘Zachariah,’ and some of its passages two or three 
times ove.. 1 do not hesitate to say that it is decidedly the best story yet 
written in this country. Some of the scenes are as touching as were ever 
penned by Dickens himself.”— Charles Aldrich. 

A brilliant story of to-day. Will be read by all classes. NOW READY 

III. A RESPECTABLE FAMILY. 

By Ray Thompson. Square 12mo, black and gold stamp, etc. 55C pages^ 

91.25. 

A story of New England life, full of quaint humor and abounding In 
oleasing incidents. 

“ He has given us an entertaining and not unprofitable hook. -^—Morning 
Star. 

“A perfect character-sketch of the humorous and eprnest phrases of 
American Life. The quaintness and native wit of Jones are delicious, and 
many of his sayings and doings recall the genial side of Ll^icoln's character. 

“A thoroughly enjoyable book, and one showing the peculiarities of 
American life in a most attractive manner.” 

II. SHADOWED BY THREE. 

By Lawrence L. Lynch, Ex-Detective Square 12mo, 53 illustrations, 
black and gold stam.:), 738 pages, $1.50. 

The most remarkable and best written of all detective stories. The 
illustrations alone are worth five times the price of the book. 

“Shadowed by Three ’ is the novel of the day. If the author is as good a 
detectiveas he is writer, hewould beaboon toaCongre.s8ional Investigating 
Committee— that is provided they ever wanted to ‘find things out ’which, 
of course, they don’t. But do not imagine that this book is a ‘detective 
story ’ in the sense those words are generally understood, for it is not. But 
it is a powerfully cotistructed novel of the senool of ‘ The Woman in White,’ 
•The Moonstone,’ ‘Foul Play,’ etc., with the added great advantage that its 
author isthoroughly familiar with, and master of. thevaried and entrancing 
material he has so skillfully woven into his vivid and richly colored story ^ 

I. THE DOCTOR’S PROTEGE. - 

By Miss May E. Stone. Square 12mo. 7 illustrations, black and gold 
stamp, 330 pages, $1.00. 

“The story is of rare beauty and intense interest.”— Rosfon Home J our. 

“It is a very pretty domestic novel gracefully w’ritten.”— Boston Satur- 
day Evening Gazette. 

“Contains the material for a three-volumed novel, with enough surplus 
to base half a dozen Sunday school books on.”— Detroit Evening .News. 

“The book is one that can not fail to please all who read its sparkling 
pages. The story is a good one; genial, healthful, and charmingly toid.'’— 
Wayne County Review. 

“ The book is a good one because it calls virtue and true womanhood anJ 
the highest manhood into prominence.”— Cliicapo Inter Ocean. 

Our publications are all gotten up in a superior style as regards printing, 
binding, and illustrations. Mailed free on receipt of price. 

HENRY A. SUMNER & CO.. Publishers. CHICAGO. 



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